Blues
by unicorn66
Summary: Ever wonder why Eames is stuck like glue to Goren? I do. This story is in a spiral, not a straight line.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: When I started, I had no idea I'd be at it for so long. Go figure. I am writing to exorcise some persistent demons. This is fiction. Any resemblance to characters other than Goren and Eames is strictly coincidental. Any resemblance to other fanfiction is purely accidental. Perhaps, consider it a compliment?**

**There is an order to this in my head … maybe it'll make sense in time, and maybe it'll just come off as random and whatever.**

**Clearly not my characters. No infringement intended.**

**For all the shippers, old and new. Nothing wrong with wanting to believe in true love.**

* * *

He was rubbing her feet. They were in his lap right here in the diner booth - shoes off - and he was rubbing them.

Eyes slipping closed and head lolling back, she was trying not to groan, or purr, and managing not think too much about either her lack of ankle bones, or the bizarre intimacy located somewhere in the center of this act.

He used his quietest voice, kept talking about the case and the job while his gentle fingers dug into tender arches, loosening rounded knots and ribbed bands of sinew, tendon, muscle all bound tight and running shards of dull grey pain up her legs, into her hips and lower back.

He'd seen it as soon as he'd nudged into the small spot beside her, there where she'd said she'd be - in the last pew in the back - slipping in on her right side, startlingly handsome in his blues.

_You okay? _His raised eyebrow asked.

_Fine. _The twitch at the corners of her lips answered.

His ever-so-slight frown let her know he didn't believe her for a second, just before Bishop shoved herself in to the non-existent space on his other side, leaning over and into him in order to give her a greeting nod, winning a true frown from him for her effort.

So she had to work not to smile, biting hard on the inside of her cheek, sliding further to the left along the smooth wood to make room, and suddenly finding herself snug up against Captain Deakins' right shoulder and thigh. Looking up, she saw his eyes meet Goren's over her head, realized with a rush of warmth that she was caught in a very caring pincer movement.

Now sandwiched between Detective Robert Goren and Captain James Deakins, conspicuously pregnant, conspicuously single, Detective Alexandra Eames was going to be able to get through the funeral with her dignity intact.

And Bobby had insisted on feeding her afterward, rudely ignoring Bishop's hints for an invitation to join them.

He'd received her mild chastisement to _be nice to Bishop _without comment, just his finest inscrutable look, and an assessment, a _sizing her up._

"Give me your feet." he'd said after a time, holding out his left hand to her.

And here she was with her fat feet in his lap, eyelids drooping and a little drool gathering in the slackened corners of her smiling mouth.

"Mmmmmmm," she sighed, stretching her calves. "I could get used to this."

"Sorry, I'm not Derek Jeter." he teased.

"Oh, I know who you are."


	2. Chapter 2

**Still in season three ... starting to go someplace. Thanks for all the astonishing reviews. You folks rock!**

Still belong to Dick Wolf. **  
**

_________________

In her dream, she was walking along a beach in a small sheltered cove - of course with Bobby. They were someplace tropical. She could feel her bare feet were sinking into sun-warmed sand.

The light was a funny brown, like it can be just before a thunder storm, and there were in fact piled cumulonimbus clouds to the horizon. A strong breeze was blowing, but it was warm.

Then they were wading at the water's edge, walking in the shallows just up to their ankles.

Bobby was in that blue shirt, contrasting brown skinned forearms under rolled-up sleeves, and she was in a bikini. She was uncomfortably aware of being exposed like that, in her advanced pregnancy. But when she looked down she saw a flat, not-pregnant belly, and ran her hand over her abdomen,

somehow ignoring the prickles like pins-and-needles just below her pubic bone.

Prickles that were something like fear.

There were gulls and shorebirds wheeling overhead, and there were waves, tossed dark green and dirty looking waves, stormy-seas waves, with frothy white caps.

And visible in the cross-section edges of the waves were sharks.

There were enormous, horror-movie sized sharks, dark-grey, torpedo shaped, moving just below the surface. Bobby was noticing the sharks at the same time she was, was pointing, and remarking at their size and power and beauty with unrestrained awe. As they looked, they realized the entire bay was filled with sharks of all sizes, that there were sharks even swimming around their feet.

The prickles like fear exploded from the center of her groin, up up up toward her heart.

Her heart hammered in her chest.

Her blood roared in her ears.

_"Should we get out of the water?" _

_"I don't think they'll bite us."_

_/ /  
_

She woke up shuddering in an orgasm, her own moans still caught in her throat and echoing in her ears.

Sat up, sweat-soaked nightshirt clinging to her still-pregnant belly and aching breasts, the sense of sharks and the feel of the tropical breeze on her skin slipping away as surely as her sleep.

Wide awake, she reached down and ran her hands reverently over the lump, worrying her lip slightly for the thought of it being gone before she was ready.

She felt confused.

Was pissed off.

_Fucking hormones_, she thought, kicking her soggy bedclothes aside and stumbling out of the bedroom.

In the bathroom, she caught her reflection in the mirror - skin pale, eyes dark. Mouth set in a line.

In her kitchen, heating water for a cup of chamomile tea, she indulged herself. She let herself think about the crazy dream she just had that woke her up like that … really thought about it.

_No._ she thought. _No. _

_No. _


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: For you folks on the B/A Love board, and you know who you are. You can find me in my stateroom (cough, cough) cabin. looking forward to a party.  
**

These characters belong to someone else - Dick Wolf, i think. No infringement intended.

* * *

You _know _it happened, in spite of all her efforts.

(And that afterwards she spent some time trying to rationalize it as _not abnormal_, and _to be expected_, _really_. And _not meaning anything at all. )_

That she thought about him the entire time she birthed her nephew.

Well, not the _entire_ time.

She is a disciplined person. She can (_does) _decide what she will think about, and for how long. She does not indulge in close examination of her deeper feelings (not since after Joe died, anyway). She doesn't see the point of that.

She had attended childbirth preparation classes with Liz, and she was there, with Bill. Everything was going more or less according to plan.

But it hurt so much.

It just hurt _so damn much_.

She was starting to get tired and a little punchy. It wasn't time to start pushing (_hours yet, dear, _said the midwife).

For the first time since she agreed to do this, she began to feel afraid.

_What have I done? _

The first tiny thought of him

_Bobby_

snuck in in a wash of blue, _that _particular shade of blue - it seemed to be the _color du jour _of scrubs on the maternity ward that day. Even the janitors had it on.

One little thought - a pin-prick - but enough of a breach that soon she was submerged in

_Bobby_.

Like he was there.

But he wasn't.

She thought she understood lonely before. She thought she knew.

_________

It was pretty late when he came, his badge or his smile or his heartbreaking earnestness getting him past the night-shift nurses.

She didn't mind though, sitting there on the edge of the hospital bed in her old NYPD sweatpants and hoodie, wool work socks hanging off her feet. She was just so damn glad to see him.

It didn't matter that she couldn't speak at first because the hard lump that had been squatting just below her sternum suddenly rose up to her throat when he slipped into the room. She could tell that he could tell, and (_always the gentleman_) he busied himself fussing over the small potted plant he had brought with him - a star jasmine with its contrasting deep green foliage and ethereal white flowers, trained to grow around a hoop - a plastic florist pick declaring 'It's a Boy!'

He set it on the wheeled table next to her bed, pulled the visitor's chair as close as he could, and sat down with his accompanying 'fresh cold air' smell and 'just smoked cigarette' smell and

_Bobby smell_

smiled his genuine, right-from-the-depths-of his-eyes smile until she could speak again.

"I think you're too big for that chair."

"Maybe. A little."

Then in his way, filled her in about the case he and Bishop had wrapped up that afternoon, his nearness so _good _that, this one time, she could let herself get away with pretending not to even notice when he leaned in and inhaled her, or when he picked up her hand and held it lightly in his.

"So, when do you think you'll be coming back to work?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Well, you go do something completely irrational like write a Criminal Intent fanfic, and folks go and read it and give reviews and it becomes like … **_**so cool. **_

**Thank you, Daystar Searcher. **

**Thank you tigger - kindred spirit, sister. **

_**Still**_** someone else's characters. (*sigh*) **

**I think these are like a series of my flights of fancy - seriously, I could go on all day - but there's a narrative in there. Somewhere. I think. **

* * *

Vibrating.

That might be the right word for how she was at this moment. Not how she felt, but _how she was_.

How she _felt _wasn't something she was prepared to analyze too closely yet.

Because she was angry, sure.

That _might just do something reckless and foolhardy _angry.

Pennsylvania angry.

But truly, she was more frightened, more deeply afraid. Afraid in her core, afraid in her bones.

Afraid every time she closed her eyes, where she could see him and his gun at the other end of her gun, her words locked tight behind a shock as solid and as breathtaking as a kick to the gut, with the thoughts she wouldn't dare think, while the moment stretched and stretched, tight as her finger on the trigger of her weapon, tight as his grip on his own.

Eames didn't do afraid.

Because she was a cop - a Detective, First Class - the daughter of a cop, and the widow of a cop.

The partner of a cop.

She knew.

Fear was a luxury she couldn't afford.

Things can happen when you're on the job.

Things happened on the job that didn't get talked about.

Sometimes on the job a good cop might have to step over a line, for the job.

Sometimes.

A cop might get tired or maybe just plain lazy and let himself drink too much. Maybe stay too long at _Murphy's _or _O'Ryan's _or _Logan's Bar _and get home to find his kids all in bed, his supper stone cold and his wife even colder. Maybe live like that for years, for a career, a lifetime. Maybe a lonely cop might help himself to a little bit on the side from some 'buff', a dumb little cop groupie, or some scared little girl on the stroll. Sometimes that happened on the job.

Maybe stuff that was bad stuff happened, and it just never got talked about.

Sometimes, maybe an overworked vice cop could get into trouble out there if no-one had her back, could maybe get … _hurt_. Sometimes a narcotics detective undercover could get messed up with the drugs he was trying to get off the streets. Sometimes, even good cops with good partners got killed.

On the job, things happened.

Things that broke partnerships, tore families apart, left marriages barren. Frozen. Dead.

She knew.

So she was vibrating.

Wishing she could run, could be running laps around a track, could be running laps around her block, running anywhere just running.

Running fast until she couldn't think about it anymore or at least didn't have to fight so fucking hard to not think about it.

" … can be, you know, connected to a stressful situation, but _your job_, you know? I want you to take some time to really relax, reduce your stress load. And you need to stop running for awhile, Alex. We'll do some blood work just to be sure, but you know a lot of women our age experience these kinds of peri-menopausal symptoms, and you know, when you're not planning to have kids, lots are pretty happy to see the end of monthly menstruation. It's really not that unusual …" her look killing whatever had been next.

"Alex? Hey - are you okay?"

* * *

The weeks stretched. No change.

She assessed the bitter irony -

_He'd know. If he were here, he'd know._

Running forbidden, _now_, she waited.

_Now _there was trying to increase her body-fat index. _Now _there was trying to relax. Now was trying to exist without a partner of any kind, without either a husband or a partner. Without a child, no son. No daughter. Just her.

Now, there was just being on her own. Just being _there_ without her partner. Being either _there_, or _here_.

Wishing she was neither there, nor here.

So she was standing as still as she could in that spot - that spot in every house where you're at a junction - not in this room. Not in that one.

She was just standing, holding her elbows and vibrating.

Enduring a cruel _déjà vu. _

Of Pennsylvania,

that night on the silver thief's case. That night she wouldn't let herself think about in the light of day and still, _even now_, blushed to think of at all.

* * *

She'd been a married woman and had felt pretty comfortable with Joe, and their married life, and all. She'd been a vice cop. She supposed she'd seen some things.

But Bobby … well, there was simply nothing in her world of experience that could have prepared her for a night with Bobby.

* * *

While they never,

_never,_

spoke of it,

she had understood exactly what had been laid out on her body.

That he'd marked her, claimed her. That she was henceforth _his_.

She supposed she'd been his for awhile, just like he was (willingly, _reverently_) hers, and Pennsylvania was just their way of formalizing things.

How was she supposed to work alongside him and want anyone else?

And anyway, loving someone she couldn't touch wasn't anything new.

She hugged her arms more tightly. Five and half months of staring at his empty desk, then turning that corner into that room to find him in her sights.

_Bobby. _

___________________  
_

"_I could have blown your head off back there."_

"_I was trying to protect you …"_

"_Since when?"_

"_I hope it was worth it."_

*

To his credit, he hadn't even tried to call. And she ached from it.

The ache seeped into everything.

*

"_A missing husband case - you need both of us on this?"_

*

"_You're right. I'm just saying. You're absolutely right." _

His lame-ass version of an apology, his 'white flag'. Whatever.

__________________

She scratched the bridge of her nose, then her hairline above her forehead, then her forearms, sighed heavily.

Pennsylvania.

She felt just like that night.

So she was pretty sure he was somewhere nearby.

At least, the hair standing up all over her body told her he was, and her cunt.

She'd been sort-of surprised when he'd left so quickly. She'd been sure he was going to come at her, all giant, repentant boy, all soft, sad eyes and self deprecation.

She'd steeled herself, rehearsed some biting remarks.

But he'd left right away, driven off in his fucking car. Whatever.

She was pretty sure he was out there, close … so she strode to her front door, a little cocky perhaps, trying to work in some confidence she definitely didn't feel on the inside, and flung it open, mostly expecting to see him there.

But he wasn't there.

She looked, peered into the gloom with growing disappointment, a slow sinking sensation in her belly, a deflating.

The stoop and street below were empty.

She closed the door again, locking it securely for the night and switching off the front light.

Moved to the kitchen to heat the kettle, thinking herbal tea might help. That maybe she should run a bath. Or … And waited for the whistle, frowning at her own ghost reflected in the glass of the kitchen window, coming slowly into awareness of the small, red-orange light first glowing brightly, then dimming from the shadows just beyond the light cast on her backyard patio by the light from within.

Then jumped when she recognized the lines and angles of his face from within the shadows where he stood, leaning against the fence, smoking a cigarette and watching her.

As she looked, he stubbed the cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe, pocketed the butt and moved towards the door.

And she thought about Pennsylvania.


	5. Chapter 5

**_'What happened in Pennsylvania?'_ What do you mean, _'What happened in Pennsylvania?' _**

* * *

That night on the silver thief's case,

yes, of course she'd heard what charming Mrs. Kenderson said to Bobby.

"_Hope is for suckers, Detective." _

And, in spite of herself, let slip a facial expression she knew was … _not nice_.

It was starting to seep into everything, this longing like the memory of musk on the back of her tongue.

She was becoming seriously pissed off about it.

There in the wilds of the flipping Poconos the damn booking took too long, but the locals were all smiles and high fives about the overtime. CSU was being 'thorough' which really meant '_slow'._

The Department was planning a big publicity "Hoo-hah" (the captain had called it) on account of the scope of the silver case.

"A chance for the Chief to pat himself on the back on the six o'clock news."

He'd told them to hunker down for the night, and escort the mug back downtown in the light of day.

"Tell Bobby. Be prepared for a circus," he'd warned her, then joked again, "and don't forget that ham."

Great.

Midnight, and they checked in to a pair of rooms, some 'Cozy, Romantic Cabins' in a 'Pine-Scented Woodland Setting!'

'Jacuzzi Hot Tub, Fireplace!'

Jesus Aych Christ.

She saw him go with his bag, heading toward his cabin while she lifted hers from its spot under the back seat, and closed the car door probably a little harder than she should have.

She was vibrating.

Angry_. _

Sick of being angry, and tired of being angry.

Blocking thoughts that had absolutely no point to them_._

"_Hope is for suckers, Detective." _

Focused on that one, largely-meaningless syllable.

_No._

Got to her own front door. Inserted the key. Turned the key, felt the lock click and the latch release, the door crack open. Got a noseful of stale motel. Felt all the hair on her body rise, a quick tightening in her belly and turned to find him right behind her, maybe fifteen feet away.

Actually _gasped. _

But that was all she had time for and then he was there, pushing the door open with his right hand over her head, following her through with his left arm around her upper body,

kicking the door shut behind them hard enough to crack the frame.


	6. Chapter 6

And that was Pennsylvania.

________________

She crossed her arms defensively across her chest, turned the deadbolt and opened the door to him.

_Go home, Bobby, _her face told him.

_Make me,_ his eyes dared.

Before she could do more than open her mouth to show she might have something to say about _that, _he'd closed and locked the door behind him and placed his considerable self in the middle of her kitchen.

Six feet four inches and hundreds of pounds of intractable, belligerent cop.

A stranger.

Someone she _thought _she knew.

There had been a _her_ Bobby.

Wordless, that night while she held her non-child to her breast, fed him the precious first food only she could give him.

Holding the plastic dish and holding her while she vomited after telling her,

"It was Jo. … Gage."

, wiping the damp, dark blue smudges from beneath her eyes with his giant thumb the day of Kevin Quinn's funeral, stilling her trembling hand, "Let me … _please_?"

His touch like butterfly kisses, "Open. Close."

Things could happen on the job. Cases, choices.

Things.

This man had leveled a very big gun at her, then in the face of four cops yelling at him to drop his weapon and get on the floor, had stared her down for six more seconds.

Now he was someone else. Maybe she was, too.

"This is the last time you're going to get to use this play, Goren. You had better make it good."

Her breath felt like it was caught somewhere in the middle of her chest.

She was ready for a fight. It was what she thought she wanted, but he dropped to his knees in front of her, wrapped his arms around her, pressed his face into her midsection, said one word.

"_Please."_

Even as the coldest part of her was still urging her to push him away _and fight_, scream all of her unvoiced terror out of her marrow, out into his face, shake him and punch him and _punish him_, tell him how afraid she was …

Really, she knew she wanted this:

renegotiation.

* * *

The night in Pennsylvania, her _"Why do you have to be a cop?" _was more statement than question.

His left arm was still around her.

"Why do you?"

Eyes locked, hearts beating hard, he asked her,

"Is it what you want?" His voice was very low, his breath stirred the hair near her ear. "A normal life?"

"No,"

"No? You don't want it? Husband, children, picket fence?"

"No, I …" she tried a dry swallow, "I want … "

"You want me to go?"

"No."

(He smiled then )

"I want _you. _To touch me and to _… _"

That _intensity _and his moving hands silenced her.

"No," he might have whispered, "I know what you want."

________________

That was Pennsylvania.

Tonight, there was only

_Yes._

And,

_Yes._

* * *

When she got up just before dawn, she found the first dark red show already on her thighs.

Started crying - shuddering sobs that shook her down onto the bathroom floor, to all fours, which was where she was when Bobby burst through the door, hair tousled and face spread with alarm.

"Eames? What … ? What is it?" He knelt down beside her, pulling her against his thigh, both hands on her back, now brushing her hair from her face, now bending deeply at the waist.

"Eames?" He whispered, soothing. "What's wrong?"

And she started laughing, knowing she must seem insane, letting him help her lean back on her haunches.

_I'm naked and bleeding on the bathroom floor_, she thought, and laughed harder_. I'm naked and bleeding, and Bobby's here._

_Suddenly, she couldn't stop touching him. Put both hands on him, on his shoulders, on his chest, on his face, laughing. _


	7. Chapter 7

**Characters are the property of Dick Wolf, et al. I have absolutely no rights or claims, just having some fun. (... NOT having fun trying to format my stuff here, though. There's a learning curve to this, and I'm sliding along it in a sort-of controlled free-fall. Getting better, not perfect yet.)  
**

**Verse by ****Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī - known in English as 'Rumi'.  
**

**One "O.C" (not really an o.c., just a name - "Mavis O'Neill"- assigned to a random, diminutive female coworker.)**

**This _is_ one story, and it will not cooperate and come forth in a linear fashion. I've tried everything I can think of, and it just will not come out that way. So yes, we are jumping around from time to time, and I'm sorry that it's confusing. I'm asking you to bear with me, folks. It will make sense eventually. I think. ****Thanks to all fanfic writers for inspiration, thanks to my proofreaders, tigger and MaryE, AND, thanks for letting me know yer liking it, everybody! **

* * *

_"You don't know Alex."_

He recalled that this phrase was something he had heard a couple of times in the days following Dutton's murder. People had been saying the sorts of things people said when a cop died on the job.

Like "He was a Good Cop," and "Damn shame, so young," and "No kids, thankfully."

And "His wife? She'll be fine. You don't know Alex."

//

Their second week working together, they were getting into their vehicle when she asked,

"Do you know who I am?"

He was surprised. She was Alexandra Eames - 'Alex' to the Captain and 'Eames' to everyone else. She was a Major Case Detective, senior partner, had come to MCS from Vice. She was a good cop. These were the kinds of things he'd been told.

He wondered, did she mean 'Joe Dutton's widow'?

Or 'Johnny Eames' daughter'?

(The NYPD was a small town.)

Then there was everything else, too. Everything she wasn't telling him.

Like, that she was much, much smarter than she let on. That she recognized the value of silence, that she was at least as fearless as anyone he'd ever met. That she had a dangerous sense of humour, deadly instincts.

And, that he knew that it had happened to her, too.

It wasn't just that ghost of a flinch. Or her pupils - dilated, her nostrils - flared, or the faintest blush high up on her exquisite cheekbones.

Mostly he knew - _her too - _because he could smell her.

And there had been shot of blue-white light that burst somewhere in his forehead, like a single firework. In its aftermath, a line of verse remained -

"_Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."_

She was a hard read, but he knew she didn't want to work with him. Since he was pretty sure he wasn't going get to know much more about her, he looked right at her, answered as honestly as he could.

"Yes, I know who you are."

She gave him a sharp look. Didn't ask anything else.

//

//

Obviously, he was going to notice everything about her. He notices everything about everything anyway. Why would his partner be exempt? Certainly not out of a sense of decorum. Goren can pretend a lot of things, but he doesn't give a shit about decorum. No, he was going to notice everything about his next new partner anyway, and when she turned out to be Eames, well, he was definitely going to notice. _Everything. _

Make no mistake - his blood is red.

There wasn't a laundry product she could use, a grooming product, a cosmetic that he wasn't going to notice. And that was just olfactory knowledge. He has plenty of senses to work with.

//

//

She was realizing that she couldn't seem to stop watching him, which was starting to piss her off.

It wasn't his clothes - all those impeccable suits, and anyway she was still undecided about what she thought about those. Half of her was snidely amused, the other half admiring of the way he presented himself. It wasn't his arrogance, or the fact that he was an insufferable know-it-all, though in all honesty, that _was_ starting to get on her last nerve. And (since she'd got past the first shock) it wasn't even his superficial resemblance to Joe.

It was more something about the way he moved. As though he was literally ready for anything.

Captain Deakins had given her a funny kind of sad-eyed look over it. Asked her, "You sure?" Accepted her request and promised to find her someone more suitable. Asked her to hang in there 'til then.

Now she was watching him do that thing, that loose jointed saunter over to the printers, some important scrap of paper in his hand. She saw him oh so precisely place one hand in between O'Neill's shoulder blades as he stepped around and past her and tiny Mavis, more used to being shoved out of the way, gave him a million watt smile for his considerateness.

And at the copiers he stepped up to join (she grimaced) _fucking Jenkins and fucking Martinez - those pricks_ - who were taking their ten ay em 'dirty joke' break. She watched him tip his head slightly to the left, mild smile on his face, listening.

_Figures_, she thought.

She was watching, so she saw Martinez's hands making some crude motions, saw Jenkins grinning, then heads back laughing. Saw Goren in the impeccable deep blue suit lean in very close, say something only they could hear. Saw both detectives' eyes hit the floor, thought she might be able to feel the heat coming off Jenkins blazing face from that distance. Goren slipped past them, fetched his new scrap of paper from the copier, started back toward their desks.

Well.

She tried to be casual, make it look like she just happened to have been glancing around the room, but he was too smart for that.

And, he was smiling - grinning actually. It was infectious.

So she inspected her form for an appropriate interval, tried hard to keep her face blank. She could feel him waiting. She thought maybe he was vibrating.

"You're not going to get invited to join their old boys' club acting like that, Goren." she smirked.

And since he didn't respond, she figured it would be safe to look at him again.

_Well._

He was leaning in, smiling, just slightly, looking right at her. And Eames thought, _"He's looking right at me."_

And he said, "I've never been much of a joiner."


	8. Chapter 8

People learn to lie for different reasons. Some learn because they are afraid of the consequences of the truth. Some lie because their own truth is unattractive or dull and a lie is more exciting. Some people lie because they don't really care about the truth and a lie is an easier way to get what they want. Some people lie as though their lives depend on it.

Eames is a good liar - resourceful, inventive, utterly committed to her part.

She's had some practice.

//

As far back as she could remember, she wanted to play with the boys. It wasn't because she didn't like girls or being a girl. It was just that the boys did things she was more interested in. She wanted to be outside. She wanted to be running fast, and laughing, and trying her hardest to be first. It wasn't more complicated than that.

During the second week working with him she realized she hadn't had this much fun in a long, long time. In truth, not since she turned eleven and suddenly wasn't allowed to play anymore - not road hockey with her brothers, not pulling engine parts with her dad. Oh, she was still allowed to hang out and even to move the hockey net for cars. She could still pass Dad that ratchet from over on that shelf. And, because she has always been nothing if not a 'good sport', she lied about it for a longer while than she should have.

Kept pretending that what she'd been left with was still fun.

//

There aren't a whole lot of opportunities to play and have fun when you're a cop.

There's hand-to-hand fighting.

Cops spend time training in the arts of 'ground fighting' and 'restraining a suspect.'

Putting down a well-trained combatant twice her size could be considered fun.

And shooting guns. Cops take lots of time at the firing range. Cops will practice with their trusty weapons until they can place that round in the center of the target's torso five times straight, or in the center of it's head. Doing it ten times, fifteen, twenty times in a row could also be fun.

Eames found these aspects of training satisfying, and made a point of helping herself to every chance she could to develop these skills. She had learned that training hard was a superb way to release job-related tension. And on-the-job tension can be a hazard.

//

There is a persistent on-the-job tension for a woman working undercover vice.

Undercover vice is hard, dangerous work.

There isn't a damn thing about it that feels like playing, and it certainly isn't fun.

It isn't just the attire or the environment.

It's something else.

Maybe, it might be the knowing that most of the guys who have her back out there would just as soon fuck her as help her do her job. It didn't matter that they were cops or that she was a cop, and even the ones who could claim to be friends with her dad or brother or husband couldn't seem to help it. Put a woman in a short skirt and high heels and every straight man and half the gay ones can't think of much else but pushing her up against that wall, or bending her over the hood of that car …

Eames might be a pretty good liar, but she doesn't fool herself.

By the time she had become an NYPD vice cop undercover, she knew that it was pointless to pretend that the truth was anything different.

But you couldn't let it get to you, and if it did, you couldn't let on. You had to have _some fun._

Joe had been naturally fun. He could really laugh, could tell jokes. _God, yes_, he'd been fun.

She'd had to work hard on having fun and releasing tension after he was killed. So by the time she was partnered with Goren, she was an extremely dangerous cop.

//

Eames is a good liar, but she could see right away that she had nothing on Goren.

He'd say _anything._

Then give her a look - sly, innocent, questioning - sometimes only the hint of a look. Like it was an invitation _to play_.

The game was 'let's be anyone we want to be, and catch us some bad guys.'

And Eames was enchanted.

It was beyond fun.

//

After they'd packed that smelly, twitching perp into the back of a cruiser, Eames turned and just headed back to the bench, tossing over her shoulder,

"I want the rest of my coffee."

He burst out laughing, had to stop walking, lean forward and rest his hands on his thighs he was laughing so hard.

When the important part of the bust is over - the part where you don't know if that perp has a weapon and if someone will die - when that part is over and everyone is okay, the adrenaline rush can be fun.

Still giddy herself, she really wanted to join him. She settled for standing beside him sipping the cooled remains of the drink, waiting for him to recover. She allowed herself to show him an open smile. A real smile.

"Nice take down, Detective," he told her with a blinding grin.

Then, (couldn't help it) held out his hand and she (couldn't help it) gave hers back. A firm handshake (there it was again).

"A pleasure, Detective," she grinned back.

And, then as he was stretching to his full height, a 'high five'.

Frankly, if this next new partner had been a man, he might have been more physical than that. There might have been shoulders clapped or, (more rarely, but still), the manly shoulder-bump half-hug he gave Lewis or Fin when he saw them.

But, with her.

He could still feel the spot in the middle of his back where she had put her hand.

Because it was not possible to ignore that she was female, he assessed her as such.

Took for granted that she would have all the insights and issues of a cop who was also a female.

He'd found that their work drew all kinds of people who were obsessed with security for their own reasons.

Women were no exception.

So he'd settle for a handshake.

//

Working with him felt the way she guessed ice dancers must feel, always traveling too quickly for a wipe-out to be anything less than catastrophic, always skimming the very edges of 'control' and 'controlled chaos' and needing to maintain a constant, visceral awareness of each other in order to nail the landing. Which they did, every time. He didn't drop her - _wouldn't_ drop her.

It was like being alive after _not being alive for a long, long time. _

_Bonus - she got to keep doing her job. _

_She wanted it more than anything she could ever remember wanting. More than playing road hockey, more than fixing the car. More than anything._

_She asked for a new partner._


	9. Chapter 9

**Not mine. **

**Adult themes. **

**___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
**

It had been the way dogs kept coming up.

First because of the photograph she kept on her desk.

Then the third morning in a row that she had muttered snide and venomous comments about a particular coworker, about the kinds of jokes he liked to tell, about some other things.

"He _is _kind of a hound," Bobby agreed.

She gave a noisy snort of derision and outrage.

"He'd give fleas to mutts."

//

The third time they were in their SUV on the way to a scene, and they passed a pair of large, happy, shaggy dogs chasing tennis balls and each other in an open, grassy park. The dogs cavorted with the kind of gleeful abandon that sends them careening in giant figure eights, kicking up clumps of sod as they corner, loose-limbed, looking a little like their joints were in need of adjustment. Their unrestrained doggish joy was impossible not to notice, impossible not to admire.

It was a perfect autumn day. The sky overhead was cloudless, blue, and the leaves on the trees were full of spectacular tones of red, copper-gold, yellow.

They were just talking, just passing time on the way to a scene, and Eames said she loved dogs.

She said she loved dogs because (she said) "Dogs don't expect anything back."

And then he just knew.

He had to be careful not to betray his reaction. It wasn't easy.

He looked to his hands, there, still on his leather binder, clenched and white knuckled. Willed them to uncurl, all while being washed by an urge to _kill with these hands_. It was kind of new, and not really expected. And it disturbed the shit out of him.

She talked, and he looked out the window and studied passing things.

_Be careful, _said some wisdom.

Then, he observed her with more care.

Then, he was more careful.


	10. Chapter 10

**Characters are the property of Dick Wolf and others. No harm intended, no profit gained.  
**

**Adult language, mature themes.**

* * *

It was his idea.

He said, because neither of them had to be at work until noon the next day, and because the case was getting to him. He said, because he really _felt _like a drink.

So they were drinking . Tequila, to be exact - golden, piquant tequila, served with dusky limes cut in strips. No salt, just the drink and the fruit. A little too much drink. And he was keeping up.

_And_ being an insufferable know-it-all, _again._

" … the Spanish distilled pulque, which is a drink the Mesoamericans made from the blue agave cactus, and voila! Liquid gold."

"A new kind of gold for the Conquistadores to kill over." Eames quipped, and Goren smiled.

"Drinking uh, just a little too much is how a lot of people get to know each other. The alcohol lowers our inhibitions, and …"

"And here I thought it was because catching bad guys is a shit job."

His chuckle brought gooseflesh up on her arm.

"You'd be doing anything else?" he asked.

"Hell no." She flicked a chewed lime rind into the little dish they'd been given.

"I'll drink to that."

And so they did.

Pubs look the same everywhere you go. Dublin, Detroit, Dubai - doesn't matter. There is a stale smell of beer and tobacco smoke, there is a bar, there are little tables and chairs. There is often a juke box. Nicer pubs might have a pool table, or private little booths against the walls.

This pub wasn't a nicer pub, and it didn't have little booths, just tables. Dirty tables, and off duty cops.

They sat at the bar.

Eames wondered what the hell he had planned, because she could tell he had some agenda. He'd been giving her a spectre of a look, something indefinable that she frankly didn't care for. Something was stuck in his craw, and he'd brought her to a bar for a drink or three and a chance to spit it out.

Eames was waiting for a _new_ new partner. She decided since she had nothing to lose, to find out what little bone he was choking on.

So she popped another wedge of lime into her mouth and waited for him to get to the point.

"Sometimes it - uh, the 'shit job', that is - can get a little too close to home. It brings up things from our own lives. Personal things."

_Ahhhh_.

"Like your mom?"

"Like my mother, yes. She is … ill. With schizophrenia. So, I have some uh, experience … well, I have quite a lot of experience, dealing with people in delusional states."

She had noticed right away that 'mom' was not a funny subject for Goren. No sense of humour that she could detect in there. On the contrary, he got this _pall_ around him, as though someone had just died. He tried his hardest to keep it off his face, as hard as he was trying to keep his neighbourhood out of his voice.

"So, what? Are you here to feed me alcohol and ask me about my personal life, Goren? You sure know how to show a girl a good time."

He looked surprised, glanced around at their surroundings, then stammered, "If we were … . If I was …, you … . Uh, no, it's not a very nice place, is it? Listen, I've had every bit as much to drink as you have, I promise." He held up his hands in what she was recognizing as his characteristic gesture of mocking defeat, some disarming self-deprecation. And he laughed again, but this one a short bark.

"You're roughly twice my size, so I don't think that counts for much."

"Well, maybe, but I suspect that you're better at drinking this stuff than I am. Look, we're working together, that's all. I didn't mean to be disrespectful or intrude, I just, I uh … I could see that you were … "

"Maybe I might have a personal stake in some issues, myself." she interrupted him to concede, relaxing a few degrees.

The door burst open just then, the wintry wind blowing some more thirsty off-duty cops, some brown leaves and paper garbage in from the street. It gave them a chance to lean back, regard each other.

Either one could have called it a night right there. They both thought about it, just saying something about morning coming early, about the long trip home …

"I have an idea," she said. "We could play a little 'getting to know you' game. Tit for tat."

"What, like 'truth or dare'?"

"No, no dares. That's too easy. I mean more like 'I show you mine, you show me yours.'"

"Sounds … interesting. Maybe … a little … dangerous. What's, um, what's 'off-limits'?"

She looked at him long enough to make him feel a little bit uncomfortable before she finally said,

"Nothing."

"So, it's like 'Truth' is the dare?"

"I guess you could say that."

She arched a fine eyebrow at him, and he offered an intense look as response.

"Are you drunk? Because I think I am."

"You scared?"

"Of the truth? No, never. Okay. I'll play. But I already showed you mine. My, my mother is, … _has _schizophrenia. That's … that's my big one. So, is it my turn?"

"Sure, go for it."

Like everything else about him, getting to know him turned out to be a surprising amount of fun. His questions were unexpected, irreverent, compelling. His answers even more.

"What was your favourite course in college?"

and "The New York Public Library."

"Have you ever eaten an entire pomegranate in one sitting?"

and "Van Gogh's ear."

"Where in Brooklyn?" she asked.

He wagged a long finger at her, smirking. "C'mon Eames, 'Brooklyn' is too obvious. That's a gift. Get closer yourself, and I'll tell you if you're hot or cold."

She slammed another shot back, smacked her lips loudly and rubbed imaginary salt off her hands, a big show of preparation for her guess. She gave him a long, slow once-over appraisal then said,

"Canarsie."

"So hot you're smokin' " he smiled at her, and she gave him a fleeting grin in return. "You - you've got some Boston in you."

"Very good, very good, Detective Goren. Yes, my mom's family comes from there."

They played, and laughed. And got steadily more drunk.

The hour got later. Neither of them felt much like leaving.

"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon …"

"Okay, stop! I believe you!"

"Blue. You prefer …?"

"Blue."

"'Kind of Blue'?"

"'_Blue in Green'."_

"_Ahhhh_ … nice choice."

The tequila was heady, the limes were tart. The pub was warm, discreet.

"Rimsky-Korsakov. That one, you know 'The Flight of the Bumblebee'?"

"_Oh my God_, you're joking?! Did you get caught?"

Their laughter drew attention from the few people still sharing the pub.

"I don't know anyone who voted for him, either."

"Sergeant."

"1984."

"Who is your favourite superhero?"

"You have to ask?"

"My _least _favourite vegetable would have to be Brussels sprouts.

"Basketball, but baseball is a close second."

"What's wrong with curling? It's an Olympic event."

"See, just there, you said 'event'. Not 'sport'."

There were differences, and similarities.

"Twelve."

"Eighteen."

"Lake George, or Boston. To see mom's folks."

"No, just to the beach. Mom loved, uh, _loves_ the beach."

"It was a Ford Galaxie 500."

"Sharkskin."

"Physics."

"'_Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'_."

"I wouldn't have guessed that. The musical, too? No … okay, _not_ the musical."

"No way!! _Me too_!"

"Harriet Tubman."

"_Hmm_. Good answer. My turn. Why do you keep trying to hide your smoking from me?"

"Because your opinion is important. To me. I don't want you to think badly of me."

This last, plopped between them like a stone dropped into a deep well, brought quick lucidity and some sobriety. There was a little silence, then Eames said,

"Like smoking is somehow worse than being … disingenuous?"

"That's a very good point, Detective Eames." He was studying the surface of the bar, just glanced up at her quickly from under his brows, smiled very wickedly, said, "Hi, I'm Bobby and I'm a tobacco addict. And you just used '_disingenuous_' in a sentence."

"Oh, sorry," she teased. "I'll try to stick to one-syllable words from now on. I don't want to come off like a fake."

He put his head back and laughed, and she laughed too, and it cleared the awkwardness.

Since he was pretty sure they weren't going to work together for much longer, he figured he had little to lose.

He decided.

"So uh, how old were you? When the uh, the abuse started?"

//

An estimated one in three American girls will be the victim of unwanted sexual contact, most before their eighteenth birthday, most at the hands of a trusted older male - usually a relative.

This number is fairly constant across all other socio-cultural boundaries, so the daughters of lawyers, doctors, Supreme Court Justices are every bit as vulnerable as the daughters of brick layers and auto mechanics and unemployed immigrants.

While it seems that the daughters of alcoholics are abused by their male relatives with a significantly higher rate of predictability than the daughters of non-alcoholics, really, the one thing victims of these crimes have in common is that most never tell anyone what has happened to them.

Ever.

//

And so, he had started to think she wasn't going to answer him. And, he felt badly about having brought it up, especially about the way her face had changed, the way her eyes had suddenly become somehow more round and her upper lip was stiff and pinched but her bottom lip had suddenly become soft and shiny, and her cheeks had suddenly become pink, even though her face was pale. Pale. Pale. He could see exactly what she had looked like as a small child, which somehow hurt, and he was frantically fishing around in his alcohol-muddied mind, was preparing an apology, trying to find some words to say how he felt about always being too nosy when she finally said,

"So that's what you're after. No … You're good, I'll give you that. But, I think we've had too much to drink for this, Goren. Or you wouldn't have just asked that. And I'd have probably punched you in the head by now." She looked up at him, open faced. "No-one's ever asked me that before. And I … don't know why I'm even answering you now."

And he was quiet, giving her all of his attention and then a little more, leaning forward but not very much. Then watched her eyes lose focus, flick around the tabletop, from the rings of condensation and lime rinds to the empty shot glasses and anywhere but at him. Then because she is brave, she looked right at him again, searched his face for something and maybe found it there because she took a deep breath and said,

"I think I was about five, maybe six."

She could see what he was thinking, hastened to clear that up.

"No, my dad is a decent man. He'd _never _…"

Goren nodded. Silence was easy, and he let it stretch between them. She was lost somewhere in memory.

Nicer pubs have juke boxes, but this was not a nicer pub. The top forty countdown played on the tv over the bar, and one of those beige country singer with squinty eyes and a huge Stetson hat twanged on about how great his life was.

"God, I hate this fucking song." she said, ran a hand tiredly over her face.

Bobby signaled the bartender, "Two coffees, please? (to her) Water? And some water, as well."

Then using his quietest voice, he took the next half hour, told her all about life with Frances. Brought them gently back to Earth. Anchored them there.

" … since I was only about seven. I wasn't ready to be … ." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

And she ached for him, the little boy he was, at the mercy of a violent, out-of-control, insane woman. A brilliant, charming, charismatic woman who was clearly adored by her son, a little boy who could do nothing but watch her slide away into madness. It was awful. Awful.

He said, "Child abuse … can leave the victims feeling … angry. Abandoned. And victims have every right to feel like that. Let down. Like, like uh, the people who were supposed to be there didn't take care of them … but then it becomes up to us, you know, to find something useful in the experience, and you know that one about what doesn't kill me … "

She interrupted him with a noise of impatience.

"Ah god, I hate that crap. You don't really think that, do you? No, I didn't think so, just … what? Too much time in Germany? You know, I'd like to dig Nietzsche up and kick him in the nuts. It's all you hear, when you're a female and you've been victimized. Everyone wants you to deal with your _feelings_, to talk about your _feelings_. Get you to say _it wasn't that bad_, and _it makes me stronger_. What a load of shit. Nobody gets stronger from being abused or raped. And I don't want to talk about my feelings. Can we talk about what happened? Can we talk about that? No, of course not. So you're stuck. Not a 'girl' anymore. Not ready to be a woman. With this experience and knowledge that makes you different forever. At least you feel like it does. There's a line through your life, there's a before and an after. But you can't talk about it. You aren't allowed to say what actually happened. That isn't polite. It might make someone uncomfortable. Can you imagine telling any other kind of crime victim, 'don't tell anyone what happened to you, but it makes you stronger'?"

"I'm sorry."

She made her noise of dismissal - a short series of effs punctuated with a tee.

"Why are you sorry? It isn't your fault."

"No. I know that. But, … I'm a man. I feel … I am aware of. I think sometimes that it's harder to be a female."

"Well, I don't know about that. I believe that life is what you make it. None of us gets to pick and choose the things we have to deal with. We - _if we're lucky _- we only get to decide _how_." Her eyes were flashing with a breathtaking light from inside, her distress as evident as the power of her resolve. "And I decided that I'm never going to feel that way again."

"Eames," he said. "What would have been better?"

"The truth." She sipped her coffee. "Just the truth."

"And now?"

"If I'm lucky, maybe make it right for someone else."

Bobby studied his hands around his coffee cup, then nodded once, and after a pause, he nodded again. Then looked at her, met her eyes. Drunk but getting sober, open (for now) with nothing but their clothing and some airspace between them, together in some magic bubble, a temporal distortion in which only honesty was possible, she was sure that she hadn't felt like this since Joe died.

_Safe._

//

One hellish week later, they were in a hurry, there wasn't much time, and they were just outside young Maggie Coulter's bedroom door. He caught her gaze with his, touched her elbow, said so only she could hear, "Bad cop."

Then handed her the packet in his hand - some ID photographs from Immigration, and an index card of things to say to _provoke _this witness. Things from their personal lives.

It was much, much more than a little too close to home.

Eames is a consummate professional, so as incredulous as she was, it didn't show.

Even as a white-hot rage coursed through her and thoughts like 'you _fucking asshole_, you _arrogant fucking prick_' and 'I _hate you_' flowed over and around her, she kept it together. She nodded, took the cards.

Even though her heart felt like it was actually on fire, and she could feel her face stiffening into an ugly, cold mask, she did what he wanted.

Did what she needed to do.

Did her job.

He hovered near the door, vibrating. She took the small chair from its place near the wall, moved it closer to the bed. Sat down.

"I'm Alex," she told the girl.

//

Eames is a disciplined person. She can (does) decide what she will think about, and for how long. She doesn't like to dwell. She doesn't see the point in that.

But over the years, she would have many occasions to wonder at herself. Wonder why she let him take the lead on that, wonder what mysterious instinct for self-preservation and survival overrode her desire to pull rank, be the senior partner, tell him to fuck himself and run the interview her way. Why she chose his instincts over her own.

Maybe it was the leftovers of that tequila-inspired raw honesty, a residual feeling of the safety that had mostly vanished the moment she squeezed her right index finger on the trigger on her weapon and saw a man die in the street like a dog, and was evermore _a killer_.

Maybe it was just because of the day.

But she'd wonder _why_, and she would tentatively touch her chest over her heart, recalling the miracle. Eames would touch the spot on her chest right over her heart and remember _that_ moment, when her heart had broken into millions of tiny fragments and shards. And that when it happened - and there had been an actual sensation, like a pressure that built and built, and then a little pop - that the fragments hadn't shredded her insides or torn open fresh wounds as she expected they would, but had become like a rare and perfect liquid, had poured through her with something else, something totally new.

_That_ moment, when she saw Bobby Goren rescue an innocent child, and was herself reborn.

//

What she _did_ do as soon as they got back to the eleventh floor of One Police Plaza, even before she took her coat off, was head directly to Deakins' office.

"_Hell no_, it's no trouble at all, Alex. Consider it forgotten," her captain beamed at her. "Suits me fine. Less paperwork. Now, I've got cases stacking up like Christmas coming, so you and _your partner _get back to work. And Alex," she paused with her hand on the doorknob, and he smiled at her again, "for what it's worth, it's the right choice. I know it."

//

Up to and including that morning she found herself naked and bleeding and in her partner's arms on her bathroom floor, she remained enormously grateful for two things:

He never apologized for what he'd done with the Coulter case.

And he never asked her when the abuse stopped.

**A/N: Male child sexual abuse occurs across all socio-cultural boundaries, as well. **

**The uniform secrecy around this crime is so severe, we have very little idea of 'real' numbers. **

**As it stands right now, I think 'one is seven' is the accepted 'official' estimate in most first world countries. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Characters the property of Dick Wolf and others, not me. No profit, considerations, or whatever. Just for fun.**

**Some language, (the eff word)  
**

* * *

"Eames," he stopped her just outside the coffee room door, "it's not what you think. The thing with … uh, Lesley, uh, last night. I mean."

He was standing a respectable distance away so she could look him in the face without having to bend her neck. He looked sincere. Looked worried. Was trying.

She was swept by an urge to physically attack him.

Cramped, briefly blinded and deafened by grief and fury, Eames only sighed quietly. Tried to focus on what she wanted to say to him.

And it was not 'Good for you, hope you had a nice supper.' Because she couldn't eat.

It was not 'Did you have a nice sleep … _?_' Because she certainly wasn't sleeping. Not alone in her bed, not upstairs in the crib, not anywhere.

Right now, she didn't give a flying fuck about whatever _he thought_ he was doing with that woman.

And she didn't want to talk.

If she talked to Bobby right now, she was sure to start slipping, start letting the edges of the old and putrid fear show - her secret terror.

She had her job to do. Children were dead, children were dying. There was no time for her secret terror.

And even now, there were parts of it sliding backwards through that shimmering membrane - a Looking Glass-Alice backwards reflection of herself and her own life through which and behind which she kept such things as _Joe was killed on the job_.

Left them there in a pearly blue half-light - to look at, or not.

Some things that were, against her will, fluttering like helpless moths toward the stark relief of a different kind of light,

_Bobby's light_.

It had only been in Bobby's light that her very sickest and worst fear had been wrenched up from the pit of her guts, had been so harshly exposed, because in Bobby's light it had suddenly looked like maybe Joe's partner and_ good friend _Kevin Quinn had lied about what he'd seen the night Joe was killed.

That maybe they hadn't got the real killer. That the real killer was still out there.

That maybe Joe hadn't died because of a mistake, because of a bad drug bust, that maybe … maybe _something else _had happened. Something both Kevin Quinn and Alfred Manaya had agreed to lie about.

If she started talking to Bobby right now, soothing him and comforting him and being adult about the fact that he had dinner with 'Lesley', the fear was going to leak into her voice and get onto everything.

And he'd see it. She wasn't going to let him see it, not if she could help it. No.

She wasn't going to tell him that she'd had to ride the elevator up with Chief Moran this morning. Wasn't going to tell him that the Chief had actually been waiting in the lobby for her, waiting to take the elevator up with her. She didn't want to talk to him about that interaction, either. She didn't want him to _ever_ know how she'd arrived at their empty desks - no waiting coffee, no Bobby - then had to turn and bee line for the ladies room to crouch in front of a toilet, gagging and retching, shaking all alone in a stall. She didn't need for him to know about that.

And, under the circumstances, she wasn't going to tell him about Liz and Bill's house last night, about her last-minute insinuation into their evening meal. She just wanted to see her nephew. Just wanted to know he was safe and sweet and good. Wanted a dose of 'normal.' Then, after supper while she and Liz had been washing the dishes, there had been some chatting - about family holidays.

"Oh, I … ha, ha, I didn't mean. What I meant is _just family_, that's not you! I don't mean you, 'Lex, ha, ha! Of course _you're_ still invited. You're always welcome here with us." Eyes flicking to the doorway into the next room, to the back of Bill's head where he was watching the game. Liz's eyes flicking back and forth, from Bill's head, then back to her sister's blank face.

The pain in her middle had started in her car on the way home, pulling tighter and tighter until she was hunched over herself, shivering, teeth chattering, barely able to drive. She'd considered pulling over, considered placing a call to her partner. Thought about asking him, "Can you please come and get me?"

But then she remembered.

An hour in a hot bath hadn't even helped. Nothing had helped.

Right now outside the coffee room, looking into her partner's earnest 'please don't be mad at me' face, she still felt like an canon ball was resting somewhere in the bottom of her torso, pressing against her perineum from within. A cold truth she had refused to birth for one day too many.

She knew if she started to talk at all, he was going to hear the sound she was keeping hidden inside. No. Not talk.

Not talk to him about her non-child and her non-family or the Chief of D's and especially not tell him what she thought of him and his solo projects and his emotional needs and his dinner out and his chipper 'Surprise!' delivery of the regional FDA's 'Confidential Internal Memo' version of the smoking fucking gun.

No.

Eames is a disciplined person, so she allowed the violent urge to slip past her and through the quivering silvery barrier until it was over there now, and there for her to look at.

Or not.

She just sighed quietly.

"You know what, Bobby?" she finally said, "you have no idea what I think."

And then she had to turn away from his hurt confusion, his beseeching eyes, had to walk away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Still belong to Dick.**

**This is set around season four.**

* * *

Monday mornings he brought excellent quality coffee in insulated disposable cups and freshly baked pastries in butter-stained paper bags. Muffins, scones, strudels.

And (more often than not) some little thing he'd picked up somewhere, either on his way to Carmel Ridge, or on his way back from Carmel Ridge. Or at Carmel Ridge itself.

A plastic snap-together Keystone Cop figurine - the sort you'd find inside of a chocolate surprise egg.

An unusual coin.

Three words from a fridge magnet poetry set -

lavish / one / thoughtfully

A chunk of unpolished lapis lazuli.

A mangled waiting room magazine, bookmarked at an article about wild bees and honey.

A dollar store mug.

He was always in first. She would arrive at her desk and find the coffee set quite precisely in center of her blotter, and Bobby with all of his focus already on whatever case they were working. She learned early not to break his stride with superficial social graces. Her acknowledgement of his thoughtfulness was her deep, genuine enjoyment of the coffee. This pleased him like no mere "Thanks" ever would.

She'd find the other things, the trinkets and keepsakes, left in more private places, perhaps tucked into the muffin bag, or in her top desk drawer. Or later on, in her coat pocket.

They each had half of Tuesday off. Not the same half.

Wednesday mornings he would offer her even better coffee, and aromatic, oven-warm sweets (so tantalizing, they'd invariably find Rich and Jenkins lurking near their desks, casting hopeful glances.)

And, some snippets of trivia, small insights. Bits and things he stored up for Wednesday morning. Little Goren treasures.

Her role was playing it cool, pretending she barely noticed, acting like it was no big deal. If she'd responded in any other way, he'd have stopped. Would have become unbearably self-conscious about it.

It was okay though. She was good at playing it cool.

Instead, she collected snarky replies, rejoinders, and one-liners. She was an encyclopedia of ironic observations, a thesaurus of clever quips. Sarcastic derision made him so happy, it was impossible to resist. Each Monday and Wednesday morning in the elevator on the way up, she'd think, _Can I make him crack a whole smile today? _

Neither of them contextualized their behaviour this way; _I was thinking about you yesterday ... ._


	13. Chapter 13

**Characters the property of Dick Wolf, etc.  
**

**And we are in Pennsylvania. **

**Warning: This is about sex. And intimacy. **

* * *

He told her he knew what she wanted.

Took her hand and led her to the center of the room.

It was a motel room. Nothing special, just a motel room. There was a bathroom over there. Bed side tables - two of them, a lamp on each - flanked a queen sized bed which was covered with a tacky floral bedspread. There was a dresser for clothing, and a nice, big mirror fixed to the wall above it. There was the usual ghastly framed seascape secured to the wall above the bed with large industrial bolts. And, one straight-backed chair - probably a spare from a dining room suite.

It was clean. That was all.

The room held a chill, and he took two large steps to the left, reached over and adjusted the thermostat on the wall, then stepped back.

Eames couldn't take a breath deep enough to fill her lungs. Shocked, she couldn't do much in the wake of this admission, this turn of events, except stand and wait. And she was vibrating, but so was he.

Bobby, standing in front of her, unzipped her coat, not with a quick 'zzzip' but with a 'click, click, click, click, click' of teeth releasing each other. So soft, she couldn't feel his touch, only hear the sound. Her eyelids started to droop but he leaned forward and whispered in her ear,

"Don't close your eyes."

So she didn't.

He moved, stealth mode, around her, stood behind her, slipped her coat off her shoulders, slid it down her arms, set it aside. Then he took off his own.

From where he had put her, there, between the foot of the bed and the dresser, she could see his reflection in the nice, big mirror, watched him slip out of his jacket, then take off his tie and set it aside.

Saw him unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt, then the buttons on his cuffs, watched him carefully roll up his sleeves.

Then he met her eyes in the reflection.

A wild surge of desire washed up her torso and down her thighs from that sacred place in the center. Her cheeks pinked. She swallowed, and he smiled.

Settled his hands on her shoulders and let them slide down her back to her waist.

There was a clinking, and a quiet rusting sound as he unbuckled his belt, slid it out of the loops on his pants, and set is aside.

And then he toed out of his shoes.

They don't need to talk much. But there were going to be boundaries needed for this, permission asked for and given out loud in their common tongue.

"I'm going to take off your sweater and pants," he said. "Is that okay?" and she nodded.

The sweater was first - a black cashmere turtleneck - pulled up and over her head by the waist with an instruction of "arms up" from him. It crackled with static as it came over her head and her charged hair flew crazily in all directions once it was off. He first held the fabric to his face, then folded the cashmere sweater neatly and set it aside. The cobweb-fine, cream silk chemise she wore under was next. Then circled around again, stopping in front of her. He lowered himself to one knee, said "shoes" then "socks" and she steadied herself with one hand on his shoulder as he lifted first one foot, then the other, removing her shoes and peeling each sock off. He folded the two together. They were placed on the pile. He stood up and reached for her belt buckle. His knuckles grazed her bare flesh and she gasped quietly, could feel patterns of raised hair and sensitive bumps as they spread across her arms and torso. He slid her belt out of its loops and placed it on the tidy little pile of garments. Then unfastened the top button, lowered the fly, slid her slacks down over her hips and thighs, crouching to get them to her ankles. She steadied herself on his shoulder again and stepped out of them. Bobby folded her pants and put them on the top of the pile. He took all the clothes to the dresser and put them on the top.

Eames was now standing in the middle of a motel room in her white bra and panties, with her partner an arms length away.

"_Eames_," her name was a soft exhale, spoken to her reflection.

Then turned to face her. Still in stealth mode he came back, circled her once, then moved through the room, stirring the air as he passed. He made his way to the head of the bed, pulled the pillows from their place under the bedspread and set them up like cushions against the headboard. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, swung his long legs up, and shifted over until he sat with his back resting against the pillows, bent-kneed and feet flat against the mattress, he patted the space he'd left in between his thighs, and Eames came to sit there, snugged between his legs, back to his chest.

He is a big man, and has large strong hands. His fingers are deft, fingertips sensitive.

When he at last put his hands on her head, ran his fingers through her hair, her feet tingled and she moaned.

She'd been watching his hands for so long, watching and craving.

A single tear slipped from the outside corner of her left eye, was leaving a silvery trail over her cheekbone. Bobby must have seen it in the mirror, because he reached around and lifted it on one finger, touched her tear to her lips.

"_Shhhh."_

He combed her hair with his fingers. Lifted locks and let them flow over his hands and through his fingers like golden water, over and over. He lifted a handful of her hair and bent his head, buried his nose, sighed. He was intent on his task, avid and intense, his restless hands finding purpose and satisfaction in her hair. As though all there was in the whole world was her hair. Running his hands through it, over and over, from her forehead, pulling it back away from her face as though to put it in a ponytail, and piling it up above her head, then letting it fall in an iridescent, slow-motion cascade.

Then he started to massage her head, firm pressure in little circles, starting at her crown and moving out and downward. Across the top of her head, then down, toward her ears, toward her back. Little, firm circles.

Then down to her neck, to the dip at the base of her skull, index and ring finger of his left hand penetrating the soft tissue, in and then a firm downward motion toward the dense muscles just below. In and down, in and down. The pressure inside her skull, in her forehead and sinuses, changed. Rushes of tension released by his touch coursed from her crown and down, felt like water - cool, and flowing away.

His sensitive fingertips felt under her skin, searched, detected nubs and knots and lumps, stored anxiety and anger and grief. Bits of sadness, fatigue, regret. He sought them out, touched and pushed and rubbed, and released these things in rushes of tension that flowed away and away.

Then with a sweeping motion, his hands flowed down her neck to the place where her neck and shoulders met. Down her arms, sweeping away tension as he went.

Now reaching the wrists with their delicate bones, he changed tactic, selected one arm - her left arm- and positioned it, giving it a half radial turn so her hand was lying open, palm up. His right arm lying across her torso, right hand circling her wrist, he slid his left hand along the underside of her arm from her elbow to her hand. When he pushed his fingers into her fingers and pried them apart, spreading them wide to allow his to interlace with hers, she had her first orgasm. Slammed into her, taking her by surprise.

But, he was ready. Withdrew his attention from her hand (for now), wrapped both of his arms loosely around her, watched her in the reflection of the mirror opposite them, his eyes soft with desire, and awe.

When he whispered so only she could hear,_ "I utterly adore you"_, Eames knew it was true.

It happened again when he reached that spot behind her knee. She was lying stretched out on her front now, and Bobby, who had become shirtless, was half sitting, half leaning across her legs, chasing the scattered remnants of the effects of gravity and stasis from her hips and thighs. Like before, he stopped his tactile exploration of the landscape beneath her skin when he felt her hit that edge, and waited, watching. Then, not like before, didn't withdraw his attention, leaned forward on his hands, and sank his teeth into the sensitive flesh just above her right hip.

Then when she was quiet again, his mouth hovering over her hip, his breath against her skin, he asked,

"Is this okay?"

And she gave him a throaty chuckle that tensed his gut, brought a shot of that unexpected light up from his groin.

"You know it is."

He paused for three and half heartbeats before saying, "Yeah, … I do." And even as he was using both hands to hold her hips still and getting ready to sink into her again, she was so alive she could feel or maybe hear the way he was vibrating now - ultraviolet, at peace, electric.

Maybe she whispered, "_Again, harder. I love you_."

Maybe things got intense.

_When _he retrieved those things and brought them into the bed, the things he was playing with - his tie, their belts, a set of department issue handcuffs, she didn't know.

Eames was a vice cop. She has seen some things.

But Bobby …

"Where did you learn this?" she asked him once as he was backing off, releasing a little of the pressure he'd taken such care to inch up, and up, until she couldn't stop laughing.

She was still laughing, still shuddering from this new thing he was showing her, this newest level of orgasmic delight, another kind of rubbing, rubbing, and rubbing.

"Korea."

"Practice makes perfect." she stretched her spine and her legs, pointing her toes then relaxing, reveling, contented.

"No, I … no." A fragment of misery flickered just behind his eyes.

And Eames saw that he was still Bobby. Her inward breath got caught behind an unexpected and somewhat violent shifting of her heart.

"Show me?"

And there he was, bringing all of it to her - his loneliness, his curiosity and wonder, his lust, more - and climbing inside her with his eyes and she was welcoming him in.

But he was lying beside her, breathing hard, (and being careful, they were both still in their underwear), when he asked,

"Will you?"

So she did. He watched her, and she watched him watch her, and he held her face in between his hands while she pumped her hips at last, whispering, "Oh, oh, oh."

Then (breathing hard) with her most mischievous smile, she said,

"Now, you."

She meant to follow the rules and just watch him, too, but it turned out that she wasn't so good at rules and she'd had enough of keeping her hands to herself. She couldn't keep her hands off him, her fingertips or knuckles. Or her mouth. Or eyelashes. Or ribs, or breasts. And he let her touch him then, for awhile. Until he couldn't stand it anymore.

_"Bobby," _

"Here. I've got you. Can …?"

She used her hands to show him it was okay. And he sank like a stone. And she held him with all her strength.

Then they fell asleep under the cover of the tacky floral bedspread, in the shelter of each other's arms.

She woke up when he pulled away from her and slid out of the bed. Wordlessly, she watched him get dressed in the dark, slip out the door and be gone.

Then, got up herself and went to shower.

And Eames was stopped by her reflection, at the abstract canvass he'd made of her skin, a myriad of little fingertip bruises, tiny nicks and faint marks. It was private graffiti, 'Bobby was here' emblazoned everywhere she looked. She couldn't stop staring at herself, then was touching each little spot, turning around to see the reflection of her back and what he'd done there.

She was ridiculously happy.

So uncomplicated, her secret needs - his hidden desire. And they meshed so perfectly.

She was starved, needed his touch. And he was starved. He needed to touch her.

Like you run into that everyday.

It was only natural that they'd offer this to each other.

There were always the rules - never in the State of New York, never risking too much.

Because he did know what she wanted. He knew when. He would ask,

_"Will you let me take care of you tonight?" _

She would assent.

They were always careful, so careful, that even when confronted directly about it a year and a half after it began during a session with Elizabeth Olivet, Eames was able to stay completely committed to her part. (and Olivet actually apologized for asking). Even being able to feel him where he was standing right now, outside on the street waiting for her, she didn't bat an eyelash or hesitate to curl her lip and snort derisively,

"Please."

Eames is a good liar.

Since they are both disciplined people, professionals, after they left the motel in the Poconos (with the damage to the doorframe covered on his credit card, and a pair of coffees to go), they were able to maintain singular focus on the cases against Wesley Kenderson and Sheila Bradley, and the awaiting press scrum. Traveling in a convoy of regional and state law enforcement vehicles with a pair of high-profile fugitive suspects in custody made that part pretty easy, actually.

But in all fairness, she did almost tell him everything on the drive back to the city. No fewer than thirty-two times, she thought she might say,

"Bobby, there's something I need to tell you," or "There's something I think you should know."

That many times plus one, she convinced herself there was nothing to be gained by telling him, that this new thing with him was going to be tricky enough. She told herself again that it was better to let the sleeping dog lie. She said to herself that it was her problem and that it didn't concern him, and that it was going to be okay.

It was what she most wanted to be true.


	14. Chapter 14

**I told some people I'd write about their road trips. So, here's a start.**

**Dick Wolf and his friends own it all. **

**I am a peon, just here in worship. **

* * *

Sometimes, she was pretty sure the captain knew exactly what was going on between them. It seemed like any excuse at all, and he'd be telling them, "Grab a toothbrush on your way to the airport." So straight faced, she'd swear he was winking. She'd have to work to keep from blushing. She had mental distraction tricks for these moments. She'd think about the Rwandan genocide, for example. Or how it felt to kill someone.

They both kept perfectly stocked overnight bags at OnePP.

So, they could be on a plane to, say, Seattle WA, in a little more than the time it took to get to JFK.

Then off into the wild blue yonder.

On the flight there, he'd had his binder open, was reading. She could see the series of head shots, lots of head shots, all of young women. Photos of remains in bodybags emerging from evergreen forests, grim-faced King County cops steadfastly not looking toward the cameras. She lifted her eyebrow.

"Ridgway," he simply said. Eames nodded, acknowledging the infamy of that name, and went back to leafing through a second-rate fashion magazine she'd found in the seat pocket.

After a time, he shuffled some papers, pulled out another article detailing a different series of murders. And the sidebar with a notorious photograph of a notorious serial killer, his mouth stretched wide open, making him seem grotesque and monstrous.

"Bundy."

Eames said as softly as she could, "Whatcha got there? 'Seattle's Worst Nightmares'? A little light reading?"

Bobby nodded slightly. She traded the fashion rag for an aging copy of 'People.'

A little later on, he closed his binder and zipped it shut, stretched, leaned over to check out her reading material.

"Courtney Love," she said. Deadpan. He bit his lip, looked away quickly, but it was too late. "You're smiling on the inside," she told him, not looking up from the magazine.

It's important to know:

Courtney Love may be the only woman in America even mainstream feminists won't stick up for, but she has long been one of Eames' favourite performing artists. Let's say she feels a certain_ kinship_. Goren knows this. He gets sarcasm.

But he _is_ a pretty serious guy. He studies constantly. There are not enough hours in the day to fit all the things he wants to have known by _yesterday _into his brain. Even if he didn't have to work, even if he could just spend all day every day in the library, there still would not be enough hours in the day.

Simply traveling to the Northwest offers him an opportunity to study the Northwest. He was a serious student, already knows generalized information about climate, geography, history, heavy industry, light industry, agriculture and aquaculture and silviculture. So he studies other things. Like crime.

Bobby Goren is passionate about the work he does. He isn't joking. Catching bad guys is his bliss. It isn't just what he does, it's who he is. He is always trying to learn more about bad guys, especially about killers. He knows the best way to do that is to study their kills. So that's what he does as often as he can.

Eames does not read second-rate fashion magazines, or celebrity gossip magazines. Eames does not even read Vogue.

Eames is studying, too.

She knows that people get nervous when they're being studied, even if they don't know they are being studied, and don't understand why they suddenly feel nervous. They get fidgety. She knows, a magazine is excellent cover.

But don't be fooled.

If you put her in a room with ten strangers and gave her just one minute, she'd be able to accurately describe each one of them by age, gender, height, weight, hair (including style) and eye colour. She'd be able to tell you what each was wearing, describe their jewelry, and where in the room they were standing. She'd likely be able to identify the make of their footwear, tell you if they had accessories, like belts or handbags. She'd also tell you if she figured any of them was packing a weapon, and where all avenues of entry and exit were located. She does this instinctively. She couldn't stop if she had to.

Several things about the trip to Seattle made it a little different than a trip to Philadelphia, or Buffalo. First was the formality of a trip by plane. They'd had to fly to interview witnesses before. But not since Pennsylvania. Then, there was the fact that the Seattle Police Department had been aggressively recruiting NYPD's female detectives for awhile now. There was a curiosity about the city, to be sure.

Mostly, the entire flight west had been electric with the thrum of anticipation. He could study the country's worst serial killers, and she could memorize minutiae about random passengers, but nothing could rub that away.

_Soon. Soon. Soon._

A thrum like the engines of the jet that was taking them far away from the place where everything was secret, closer to an unspoken possibility.

_Tonight. Tonight. Tonight._

* * *

That's true, by the way. About the Seattle PD recruiting NYPD's female detectives. Some other cities, too, but Seattle wants them bad.


	15. Chapter 15

hey - i keep meaning to say, computer-wise, i fail. i have failed to respond to a couple of reviews. if i failed in your general direction, sorry. i'm still searching my email account for some things i moved around and can't find ... don't give up on me.

Olmsted is the name of the dude who designed this bridge. otherwise, he's as fictional as everybody else.

**Dick Wolf owns all things Law and Order.**

* * *

It was late, and bloody cold. More snow had been forecast, but the sky overhead remained clear. Eames could hear branches cracking somewhere in the park.

The view from the middle of the bridge was impressive. Really, it was perfect. Above them loomed the Plaza Hotel, below them lay one of New York's more esteemed citizens, dead from unknown causes, body discovered by a set of late night strollers.

Bobby directed the CSU photographer to get a good series from that vantage point.

The man was on lying alongside the pond, pants down around ankles. Arms thrown up in a 'stick 'em up!' pose. His expression was one of surprise, as if the few stars bright enough to be visible from Manhattan were the unexpected last things he could see. Maybe it was the arrival of his own death that surprised him, because he had found perhaps the least discreet place and position in the entire world to die, there beside the pond in Central Park, just below picturesque Gapstow Bridge.

The wallet was found on the body - one Judge Emmett Olmsted. So the senior partner of the MCS team on call was called. Lucky her.

"Just what I need this year - another one of these. Merry friggin' Christmas," tired Captain Deakins told her on the phone. "The Commissioner is going to want to know everything I know about this by sunrise, so go get me something to tell him."

And so Eames dragged herself out from under her down duvet, not as unhappy about the prospect of hanging around in Central Park after nightfall as one would expect her to be.

Some uniformed patrolman guarded the scene.

"Hey, is there an easy way down there?" Bobby called down.

A patrolman replied, "We slid down ovah there." He pointed to a steep path at the end of the bridge, glittering and shiny now from use and cold.

Eames trudged over, considered the rise and run.

Muttered, "I'm too old for this." And stepped onto the slick path, arms outstretched, skittered down with a semblance of grace. Goren crashed to a landing just behind her, saying her name once quietly just as he put his hands on her shoulders to keep from colliding with her. The picture of elegance, he let go quickly, using his momentum to step around her and slide to a stop at the body.

Her lips compressed, but she decided that it was too cold to be humorous. Instead, she frowned and said,

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that was some pretty slick 'falling with style,' Bobby."

He shot her a look, the ghost of a smile lurking near his mouth.

They went to work. Slipped into their zone. Eames had a melody in her mind, distant and indistinct. It was background noise. It had some words behind it.

(_slip slidin' away … _)

Bobby examined the body.

"No obvious signs of trauma. No head wound. He didn't slip and hit his head, anyway."

Bobby crouched down near the dead man's face, leaned in, inhaling.

"Well, he's been drinking. Gin. Maybe martinis?" he suggested.

"It's not far to about a million bars from here. We'll start a canvass," Eames said, and she nodded at the patrolman. He turned to start up the embankment, slipped.

"Careful," Bobby offered, rising swiftly and reaching out a hand to steady the man. "It's pretty slippery." The cop gave a little thanks while Bobby took up studying the trampled snow underfoot.

Eames was asking the CSU on the bridge about how many people had been down near the body, when Rodgers arrived, following a flashlight beam along the shore of the pond where it was flat.

"Why didn't we do that?" she poked Goren, gesturing toward the easier path, greeting the ME with a nod. "What did you do to deserve to be so lucky?" she asked.

"Not me. Him." Rodgers pointed at the dead man. "His Honor had pick tonight to die with his unmentionables on display. So I got an invitation to come out here at this ungodly hour and chat with you nice people."

"Yay," agreed Eames. "We're having a party."

They went back to work. Twice, Eames almost fell off her feet. Twice, Bobby caught her elbow by just reaching out casually, as though he'd known all along that she was going to slip and fall at exactly that moment. Her background melody got a little louder each time.

(_the more you slip slidin' away_)

"Just one set of tracks, so he must have been down here by himself," they concluded.

The judge's face was an interesting hue of blue. Rodgers was saying 'looks like heart attack', but that she'd have to get him indoors and open him up to be sure.

They had found a fresh urine trail, and what looked to be frozen urine on the judge's pants.

"Maybe he was just down here, uh, relieving himself? And had a heart attack and died?"

"Sure, could be." Rodgers nodded.

"Of all the places …" Eames sighed. "What do they teach these boys in 'Judge's School', anyway?"

The body was removed and Liz left too.

The uniforms and the CSUs were packing up there gear, and Bobby was wound up from being at a scene. He waved his arm out with a flourish at the night-lit wonderland that was the park.

"Go for a walk?"

They strolled - a decent clip to keep warm - and Bobby wondered aloud about the fate of men. Her face felt too frozen to do anything but listen.

It was very quiet except for the rifle-shot cracks from the limbs and branches, protests against the temperature in the plain language of trees. She slipped again and he caught her elbow again. Then tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

"Don't fall," he said quietly. They walked in silence like that for awhile, a little more slowly now, to keep their strides in line. The tune in her mind picked up a little, became the tempo of her walk.

(_slip slidin' away, slip slidin' away _… )

They worked their way back toward the little footbridge with the Plaza towering above it. The clouds had come in and possibly warmed things up just slightly, and the promised snow was starting to fall. They found a particularly icy patch on a slight downhill incline just before the bridge and Eames, in a fit of foolishness, took a little run at it and slid down the slope on her boots. When she bumped to a stop at the bottom, she found Bobby right beside her, grinning like a child.

He gave her a challenging look, (_What?)_ and she grinned back, turned and headed up the way they came, slipping the whole way. Then turned and slid down again.

He laughed when she bumped into him, caught her with both hands.

"You know the nearer your destination," he said. Her eyebrows twitched up once, a little surprised, but only a little. It wasn't the first time he'd plucked a thought from her mind.

She started singing the chorus of the tune from her head out loud. He joined her. It turned out they both knew all the words, so they slid on the icy incline by the bridge and sang a song by Paul Simon.

Two forty-ish cops playing in the snow in the middle of the night in Central Park - an odd sight, maybe, if anyone who'd seen them had known who or what they were, or cared.

But too soon the falling snow was covering the icy patch and it wasn't so slippery anymore. They knew they had much more to do before sunrise came and the captain would be expecting his report. And they were both very, very cold. They were making their way over the bridge when Bobby stopped suddenly and said "Eames," in his way, like he was trying to get her attention, even though she was standing right beside him.

Then he bent and kissed her lightly on the mouth. Brushed some snow from her hair. Smiled.

"Buy me a coffee?" she asked because she didn't know what else to say.

"Yes."

* * *

(song belongs to Mr. Simon. only deepest respect intended. reverence, really.)


	16. Chapter 16

Was a nice, just-right retirement party. Nice restaurant, nice guests. Nice words spoken. No tears. After hugging him 'good-bye' again and laughingly saying it out loud, 'Jimmy', again, then watching him go with his gracious, loving wife, she nearly felt sad. But Bobby was right in her face, crowding her like a suspect.

"I have something to show you."

"Okay, what?"

"Outside."

The Mustang.

"I've seen your car before."

"It's in the car."

"What?"

"Get in and see."

Bemusement.

"Buckle up."

"Where are we going?"

"You like surprises?"

"Sometimes. It depends."

"I think you're going to like this one."

"The surprise is in Jersey?"

"I flipped a coin. Heads - south."

Comprehension.

"Is this okay?"

Mona Lisa-smiled assent.

"Good. Because I have something to show you."

"And I'm going to like it?"

"Pretty sure."

He was right.


	17. Chapter 17

**An A/N: inspired by JamiW's fabulous multi-voiced stories, i have tried my hand at Mike Logan. **

**oh gag - another take on 'Blind Spot'. **

**Belong to Dick Wolf; no rights or considerations, or disrespect intended.**

* * *

The thing was, it was like anybody or nobody could have been living in her house.

She wasn't there. (As if they thought she'd be there.) But, it was always going to be the place to start looking. Getting his head around her being anything less than an in-control, kick-ass cop was a trip.

It was hard to imagine anyone getting the jump on her.

On the way to the scene, he'd been thinking about the first time he met her. He'd been checking her out because - hey, she was hot. He had wondered what the hell the boys upstairs had been thinking, partnering her up with Goren. She looked funny as hell, standing in his shadow.

(Not standing in Goren's shadow, he'd found out fast enough.)

He knew for sure they had something else going on besides police work after that night at Brooklyn Fed. Once they finally managed to maneuver past the lock down and get out of the building, there was Eames, waiting in her toque on the other side of the chain link fence with the ADA - a picture of calm. Except for the look she shot Goren when they got close enough for eye contact. It was a worried frown, which wasn't too weird, all things considered. And then she visibly relaxed. Then, she literally transformed right before his eyes from a tense cop to a … a what? A woman in love is always beautiful, he thought. Snickered at himself, way too pleased by his possible discovery. In the half-lit gloom, it wasn't too hard to shift a sideways glance at Goren, get a load of how he was taking his partner's show of concern. They were pretty cool, it was true. So cool, Logan wondered from time to time if he'd just imagined it, if he was wrong about them. But he wasn't.

He knows, there's a look a man gives to just one woman, too.

As they got closer to her house, Logan thought about this shitty job and killing, and then wondered briefly how Goren was handling all this.

Then shut the door on that direction.

Anyway, not his business. End of subject.

It had been Barek who'd tuned him up.

"Jesus, Mike, you gossip more than my goddamn grandmother. They do their jobs. You do yours. It's not your business, so leave it alone, already."

He missed working with Barek.

When they pulled up in front of her house, there'd been Ross (_dick_) in his Kevlar and the phone stuck to his ear, in the middle of her front lawn, and CSU moving in and out the busted-in front door. Goren nowhere in sight - someone said they saw him drive off in a cruiser. Uniforms were everywhere, the street clogged with lit-up cars. News crews, neighbours, crime scene tape. It was a mess.

"Wheeler and Logan, get in on this scene." Ross had waved them toward the house just before turning his back to them, flipping his cell open with a "Yeah, Boss."

Logan raised his eyebrows at Wheeler, but she was all business. If anything about this was bugging her, she wasn't letting on. She stepped away from him, mounted the stairs, started firing questions at the CSU team at the door. Logan followed, moving around her and into Eames' house.

There was some blood, okay - maybe a little too much blood, and it was all over the floor. That much blood meant that wherever she was, she needed medical attention. Not good.

Logan followed the trail from the front hallway to the entryway to her kitchen. But on the way he couldn't help but notice with a growing sense of unreality that her home was completely impersonal. Except for the birdcage being worked over by no fewer than three CSUs, her living room could have been a showroom in a tasteful furniture store. No photos, no magazines, no books. She apparently didn't own a stereo or a tv - who doesn't have a tv? So no revealing stacks of cds and movie selections, either.

The entire house was sterile. Her bathroom looked like some industrial-strength housekeeping crew had been through it. Her bedroom was worse. Hospital corners, and all her clothing in dry cleaning bags.

It was creepy.

In her kitchen, he was relieved to find signs of life. She'd set up a laptop station near the best window, where she could look out over the miniscule patch of fenced-in cement that served as a backyard. She had bird feeders out there, and flowering plants in pots. The kitchen itself was a friendly room. The refrigerator was literally covered with magnetic photo frames holding pictures of kids - mostly of the same young boy. The kid had her eyes and her smile, probably her nose, too, so he figured he was safe guessing 'the nephew'. He smiled inwardly at the trio of coffee makers. There were two fancy plug-in models on the counter - one for regular drip coffee, and a spanking-new espresso maker. Plus, one of those little screw-together stove-top Moka pots - the kind that makes one, big cup of fine, strong brew. There was a single rinsed coffee mug beside the sink that brought to mind Nola Falacci and her ridiculous 'Princess' cup, only Eames' personal mug was bearing the surprising slogan, "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Fart and you fart alone." And here at last was her stereo and music collection, a portable number on the counter next to the freaking potted plant from hell. He should have pegged her for a Springsteen fan, he thought, giving the cd rack a little spin on its pivot. But the plant - it was something to behold. It was vigorous, to say the least. Had taken over that part of her kitchen. She had it pinned up along the wall, and it was starting to grow above the window and over the sink, too. Conspicuous for being, (aside from a couple of dozen of New York's Finest and several complete CSU teams), the only living thing in Eames' entire house, it was wild-looking, healthy-as-all-get-out, glossy-leaved, and had a couple of miniature, white, delicious-smelling flowers here and there. Hidden among its fronds he found odd artifacts and items - a delicate snow globe depicting a bridge in Central Park, a single chess piece, a sparkly blue rock, an unopened mini-bar bottle of mescale tequila - complete with worm - 'In Case of Emergency' printed in neat letters on a little card tied to the neck, a Matchbox car. He touched the rock with one gloved finger, noting the layers of bands of deep blues, the flecks of gold. Then he spied another, very small thing - a frame. He had to move a piece of the greenery aside to get a good look at it. It was a black and white Police Academy Graduation photo of a man - her late husband? Bending his head closer, Logan recognized the face of a much younger, grinning … .

A thought that would have sounded somewhat like "_Heyyyyy …_" flipped out into his mind, and he was even sort-of thinking about reaching for it to give it a better look, when Wheeler appeared out of nowhere, took in what he was doing, hissed,

_"Don't."_

Wheeler made a gesture that was a semi-blink of her right eye and a quick flare of the nostrils, and he glanced over her shoulder to see Ross (dick) in his Kevlar and Deputy Chief of Detectives Denny Moran standing there, hands on hips, glaring. Ross looked like he was in over his head. Moran was giving Eames' kitchen a thorough once-over, before snapping his watery eyes and attention to the two of them standing in front of Eames' collection of coffee makers and her plant and her secret, hidden photograph there on her counter.

"What do you have, Wheeler? Detective Logan?" Ross barked, and they all moved out of the kitchen and out of the house for a high-profile, front-lawn conference about the jack shit they'd learned from their inspection of the scene.

Something he and Wheeler did find out, though, (while they were going over the every detail of her personal life that could possibly give them some direction to go in their quest to find her before it was too late), was that she moved. A lot. For the past six years or so, every eighteen to twenty months Detective Eames changed her address. Sometimes she paid more rent, sometimes less. But.

A Detective for eighteen-plus years, Logan's been around a bit. A couple of things about Eames were familiar to him in a way that was not at all comfortable. But before he could do anything other than ponder that old maxim, 'if it looks like shit and it smells like shit …' they got the call. Not the one they were dreading. Surprising to all of them, _all of them_, that call never came. Eames was still nothing less than an in-control, kick-ass cop. Maybe someone got the jump on her, but not for very long.

"Looks like Goren caught some luck," he remarked to Wheeler.

"Anyone ever tell you that you gossip like a fishwife, Logan?"

"As a matter of fact …" he treated her to his most wolfish grin. She didn't smile back.

Over the beer she'd agreed to let him pay for, he got to give the kid a solid once over.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked her, and was gratified that she didn't get coy about it.

"He wasn't a suspect, was he? The rest isn't our business." she responded simply. "End of subject."

"I like that." Logan said. "Here's to minding my own business." He raised his glass.

She drank to that.


	18. Chapter 18

**Set around 'Privilege'.** (i must say, it's pretty wonderful of you folks to keep reading when you don't understand what is happening. you all rock. thanks!)

**Property of Dick Wolf. No harm intended.**

* * *

If anyone had been there to see, they'd have known it was only that the button on the sleeve of her blouse, sewn so well by some unknown woman in some garment factory somewhere, got stuck in a crack in one of the hard-as-time built-in shelves in the upstairs hall, shelves made of walnut or some other dark wood, balanced on their ornate, carved brackets.

And she was only looking in the first place because Lady Harrington was pretty busy ordering the tea, tugging Bobby around with her by a button on the sleeve of his coat. She couldn't seem to stop being besotted by the 'Wonderful Detective who saved ... ' yadda, yadda.

"It's upstairs on the broad shelf next to the … oh, you'll see it there. Just fetch it and bring it down, would you dear?" Waved her hand in the direction of the grand staircase, tugged Bobby towards the sitting room.

She gave him _a look _as silent retort to his quick grin, and rolled her eyes, and mounted the stairs to the upper floors in search of that dratted key.

Allowed herself a rare flight of fancy, too, of imagining (as one does) herself living in a house such as this … turning on the luscious rugs, twisting her head to appreciate the entirety of the stained glass piece lighting the staircase - vertical rectangles in shades of amber and blue. Wondering if it was actually Frank Lloyd Wright art glass.

Got busy, assessed the task, cursed her height, raised herself on tiptoes and reached up, rummaged on the surface of the shelf, reaching over the edge. No key.

There were tempting chairs standing against each wall. Taliesin chairs - a pair of them. Not putting her dirty shoes on those.

She sighed and, on tiptoe again, reached up with her right arm, her jacket sleeve riding up, reached back as far as she could, and felt the button turn and slip into a crack.

If anyone had been there, they'd have seen her face as she craned her neck to look to see if she could see an easy way to get herself down, would have seen her skin become so pale (except for the bright red spot in the centre of each cheek.)

They'd have seen her tug and tug on the sleeve, pulling, reaching up with the left hand to try to get a better grip on the shelf or the sleeve, fully expecting in her irritation to hear the rending of fabric and feel the pop of the button, the sudden release and fall back and (hopefully) _not _fall on her ass, say "Damn" and feel silly,

but.

As bad as the sharp, sickeningly-familiar pull of muscles in her arm and shoulder was, it was nothing compared to the flood of adrenaline and the hammering of her heart, the roaring of blood in her ears, skin on fire, every hair on end.

_The memories _that came from god knew where but were so close and so real until she could swear she could smell and taste blood and fear, could hear the girl who turned out to be Amanda from the video store.

Ice-cold sweat was, just like that, pouring from her body, running down her back and her arms, feeling tickly, slick and scratchy under her blouse, running down her torso and thighs, and her hands trying to grip something were slippery, and all worst times and places were condensing into one perfect, terrible moment.

Which was _still _nothing compared to the echo of the girl.

//

If anyone had been there to see, they'd have wondered first of all

where he'd come from,

and second, how a man his size could move with such grace.

Elegant, his arrival like a caped super-hero, dark greatcoat flaring,

the sweep of his right arm reaching around her from behind, around her waist to support her,

to boost her up just a little,

while his left hand reached over to free the button,

and his left foot hooked one of the Taliesins, and slid it to where he was just then lowering her down, to sit.

On one knee beside her, he rubbed the shoulder where it started up to become her neck.

Rubbed the arm, lightly, first above the elbow, then below, chafing, not a lot of penetrative pressure, always lightly, always over her coat.

He was careful not to touch her bare skin, not her neck, or her hand.

"You came looking for me?" she asked.

"Mmm-hmm."

"Have I been up here long?" she asked.

Which startled him.

"No. I just … missed you."

If anyone had been there to see when she laughed a little - a distant, tinny sound, said,

"My button got stuck"

they'd have seen him whisper "_Shhhh_" through his deep, deep frown.

(But they wouldn't have heard him.)

They might have detected her ever-so-slight lean into his hand, but perhaps not.

"Finished your tea?"

He smiled lightly, kept rubbing close to her wrist, but not on her skin.

"I'm fine." she announced ruefully, in a voice she wanted not to be shaky.

"I know. You got the key?" his hand stretched out as though in slow motion until his fingertips met her right hand, balled in a tight fist. He teased each stiffened white finger until it uncurled, at last exposing a surprisingly-modern brass key. He took it. Still in slo-mo, rubbed her bare hand a few times, until she wiggled her fingers.

"Bobby," she said, "Did I ever tell you that there was _a dog? _It was this little dogthat came to the window and sniffed my hand …? Like I was saved by a little white dog."

"Saved by a little dog," he echoed, lightly rubbing her arm.


	19. Chapter 19

**The serious part now. **

**Potentially upsetting material. Swearing, the mention of torture. Nightmares. Bad stuff.  
**

**Characters are fictional, and are the property of Dick Wolf. **

* * *

Bobby has a recurring nightmare. Well, that's actually a gross understatement.

But, there is one in particular.

It's based on something that really happened when he was coming up to thirteen. That day he came home from school and something told him she wasn't okay. Some inner voice urged him to hurry. Clumsy, clumsy boy hands growing into man hands dropped his keys twice at the front door. Only five keys, (silver gym locker, silver bike lock, brass front door, small blue mailbox, brass apartment) but he went through them three times before finding the right key, then realized somebody had jimmied the front door's mechanism, again, so he hadn't needed his key to get in at all. He hefted his book bag and took the stairs two at a time. Up, up, up first landing turn and up, up, up second landing. Up to the fourth floor, and the hallway was suddenly so long. And quiet. The sound of his sneakers on the dusty floor was all he could hear. Then their apartment door, and the struggle with the keys again (silver, silver, brass, blue, brass, silver, silver ... )

"Mom?" he asked the silence.

Then moved with as much stealth as his awkward body would allow, began his search for his mother.

"Mom?"

Something told him she was in the bathroom. And she was. And the door was locked from the inside, and it was too quiet.

"Mom?" Twelve-nearly-thirteen year old Bobby tapped at the bathroom door. "Are you okay?"

"Go away! Go away!" Frances screeched from within.

"Mom, please open the door?"

Sounds, sounds, more sounds started up. Scary sounds came from the bathroom. Something wet. A dull, rhythmic thunk of something hard hitting metal.

"Mom? What are you doing? Can, … can I come in?"

Frances shrieked at him that he was a no-good sonofabitch just like his rotten father. Shrieked at him that she should be dead, wished she was dead, wished she had never been born.

"Then your no-good sonofabitch father would know! Then he'd know then wouldn't he, the fucking sonofabitch coming here with those spatulas and power cords! Does he think I'm some kind of whore? Does he think I'm some kind of fucking whore???"

Frances screamed and then started laughing, then stopped and the rhythmic thunk started again.

"Mom!"

"I am a married woman, I am not a fucking whore. I have a college education!! Tell him that! I have some books, I know it! You just tell him that yourself, because I am not a whore! I didn't come all this way for nothing! I didn't come all this way for nothing! You tell him that. Tell him to put that in his pipe and smoke it!" Then, "Frankie! Frank! Help me! Frank!"

Then Frances just screamed and screamed, so filled with anguish that mere words wouldn't have worked out, anyway.

A boy-man already, Bobby was so frightened, a cold sweat was trickling down from behind his ears, was literally dripping from the tip of his nose, from under each arm. Within seconds, his t-shirt was soaked. He shook at the locked doorknob. Shook it and rattled it and pleaded,

"Please? Momma? Please, open the door?"

"I . (_thunk_) Wish . (_thunk_) I . (_thunk_) Dead . (_thunk_) I . (_thunk_) Wish . (_thunk_) Was . (_thunk_) … "

And he knew he had to get in to get her to stop her from whatever it was she was doing to herself. Paced backwards through their apartment to the kitchen, hunting for something, some tool with which to pick the lock. Jerking open drawers and rummaging and searching. Next drawer, rummaging, searching. Heart pounding so hard he could almost not hear the thumping anymore, just felt the percussion waves moving past him. Couldn't find anything that looked like it might work. Paced back to the bathroom door.

"Mom!" He tried to sound authoritative. "Open the door."

No response. Only silence.

Paced back to the kitchen, hunting for something, some tool with which to pry up the door's hinges, selected a thick bladed cleaver from a drawer, and back to the locked door, hands trembling violently. Then realized the bathroom door had been installed backwards, and the hinges were on the inside.

And he lost it. Started hurling his only-twelve-coming-up-to-thirteen-year-old body at the bathroom door, shouting,

"Mom! Mom! Open the door! Please, Mom! Please let me in!"

The solid wood frame held, and the lock. But it was an old-fashioned, fancy door, built with panels of delicate door-skin, fitted and held neatly in place by tongue-and-groove joints in a big, beveled-edged, cross shaped assembly of wood. The thinner wood panels started to crack. Hopeful, he hit it harder, hurt his left shoulder, kept throwing himself at the door until at last a piece cracked enough that he could push it through into the bathroom. The piece of splintered wood fell inside on the floor, and Bobby reached through the hole and unlocked the door.

In the recurring nightmare, it's always keys and endlessly-long corridors, and that locked bathroom door. And voices, sounds coming from within, things happening that he can hear but not see. And no matter how hard he throws himself at the dream door, he can't get in.

//

After she escaped the crypt Jo Gage had arranged for her, he started having that dream. Maybe it was his perpetual awareness of his mother's current, living, waking horror that allowed for her to be supplanted in the nightmare.

But it felt like he'd close his eyes and be right there again. Only it was Eames in the bathroom now. Bound, gagged, suspended, silent, waiting, Eames.

And he still couldn't get in.

On the subway, he closed his eyes and was outside the bathroom door. On the flight to Vietnam, he closed his eyes and was outside the bathroom door. In the waiting room while his mother got chemo, in the crib at work, at home in his reading chair.

And sometimes Jo was in there, and the sounds were of her doing things with wooden-handled metal instruments, a smirk in her voice as she matter-of-factly told him,

"Take a girl, years and years before her natural sexual awakening, then link, say, all her bedtime rituals - washing up, brushing her teeth, getting changed, a snuggly story time, maybe some tickling … doesn't every little girl like some tickling? Then lights out and … well, you get the picture." More sounds, and a giggle. Then, "It's true, Bobby. You can ask him yourself."

He'd scream himself hoarse, pound and pound the door, pound his fists bloody, "No! No!" Jerk awake, panting and sweaty.

Sometimes it was Officer Ray Wyzneski who was in there. "Call your mother, tell her good-bye!" he'd yell.

Sometimes it was Nicole Wallace who was in there with Eames. Just in there, calmly talking to him through the door like she was talking to him on the telephone.

She would tut tut tut at him, remind him that this wasn't about politics, it was the ultimate test of individuals. "Donnez moi un break, Detective. You were meant to protect the queen."

He'd shake the doorknob, lean his forehead against the door. Whisper, "Please Nicole, please. Please don't hurt her. Please let me in." Jerk awake, strangling on dream sobs. Her echoing words still there on the edge of memory,

_"Do you think she can wait forever, Bobby? What are you going to do about it?"_

//

But those dreams mostly stopped after Frances died, replaced with new, more horrifying terrors. Which mostly stopped after Tates, replaced by new, even deeper and wilder terrors.

And maybe he didn't let himself think about it too much.

Really, who can blame him?


	20. Chapter 20

**More serious stuff. Sorry. Sometimes, bad things happen. Adult themes. Upsetting and triggering material. **

**These fictional characters in this work of fiction are the property of Dick Wolf. I am borrowing.**

* * *

Because she regained consciousness to find herself naked, bleeding, alone on her bathroom floor. It was actually the ringing of her phone that roused her, but she realized it was her home line, not work. Not the new job trying to reach her. Small mercy. It was four in the morning. Her head was aching from the bourbon. She was aching from other things.

_Stupid, stupid._ She shouldn't have been drinking alone. She shouldn't have opened the door to him. She could see who it was through the peephole and she knew she shouldn't have opened the door. Joe hadn't even been gone for a month yet. She didn't think … .

He was_ in his goddamn uniform._ She didn't think.

She managed, just, to get herself into the shower, turned the taps on, sat in the bottom of the tub letting the hottest water possible rain over her until there was no hot water left.

Then made it back to her bedroom, back to the scene of the crime, looked at her beloved bed, her marriage bed made freshly this morning with Irish linens - a wedding gift from Joe's late grandmother. Unfortunately vomited on the carpet just inside the doorway.

She really liked that carpet, too. It was lovely grey-blue tone that reminded her of Joe's eyes and of distant hills and campfire smoke. She recalled the first time their eyes had met, and she'd thought, 'hey, I know you' and he'd smiled and really, that had been all there was too it.

They'd spent a fortune and had this carpet installed when they'd fixed this place up. They'd painted everything a warm, rich cream. No colours or borders or accent walls, just blank. Since they both had crazy work schedules, Joe would often come home in the middle of the night to find her up on a step ladder, usually in one of his older dress shirts and his wool work socks, with a beer on the go. He'd take her beer from her and finish it, then get them another pair and go to work painting, too. They talked about refinishing the floors, but it was going to be a lot of work. Maybe later, when they had more time.

She thought they'd bring their first baby home to this place. That's how she felt about this home they'd fixed up together. Before he'd died.

They couldn't afford the bed, either, but Joe had talked her into it. They'd scrimp enough to make it work. Joe had a buddy with a Ford F-150, and they got it home, then had to call friends to come help them drag it up the three flights of stairs to their apartment. It had been incredibly difficult and spectacularly funny - Joe and Kevin never stopped trying to outwit each other, and eventually the constant stream of one-liners had degenerated into absurd accents and vocal impressions.

Now they were both the Lucky Charms leprechaun.

Now they were Eric Cartman.

Now they were Abbott and Costello, and god, if they didn't both know the entire 'Who's on First?' routine. She and Teresa leaned weakly on each other, laughing. Sides aching.

They'd ordered in Tandoori chicken and basmati rice. Like Teresa, she sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her husband, leaned back into his legs and ate from her plate in her lap, and laughed and laughed.

She'd never felt more belonging, more home.

Funny how things could change.

She could see that it was not over. She knew she was going to have to file a complaint. No excuse she could give to anyone especially not to herself. She felt like she owed it to Joe.

She slid down the wall, sat naked and bleeding and wet and alone adjacent the stinky puddle of green and yellow puke now soaking into the carpet, and stared at her bed.

Then her phone started ringing again - not her cell phone. Not work. It was her personal line, her home phone.

She let the machine answer again, waited with her head leaning wearily against the wall. Heard,

"Ally? (uh - hem,) Alexandra? It's Dad. Please call me as soon as you get this. It's Mom, Ally. Something has happened. To Mom. She's … We're all at St. Vincent's."

//

Who knows why everything seems to happen at once? It seems to do that from time to time, though, doesn't it? Look at Goren, the way his entire life came apart all at once. His mother's cancer, and finding out about his true paternity, and then both his parents dying, all at the__same time like that … what are the chances?


	21. Chapter 21

**Still serious. Same reason. Hang in there, we're almost to the center.**

**Still Dick's.**

* * *

Joe did know, even before they were married. But didn't know who.

She was a lot younger. Her reactions to certain kinds of touching could still take her by surprise back then, and Joe was no idiot. He figured out what, but that was all.

Unlike Robert Goren, Joe was 'one of the guys', 'in the group', a 'joiner'. He knew all about his wife's family connections. He knew all about the bad blood.

It was at a Christmas party at a favourite bar, a 'Murphy's Bar', not far from her dad's old precinct. She was having a really good time. In part because it was Christmas, and in part because she was celebrating. She'd been short listed for a place at MCS and was looking forward to an interview and her husband was really, truly, genuinely proud of her, for her, was bursting with delight. And truthfully, she hadn't been sure he would be. So she was relaxed and happy and having a really good time.

It was a bad habit, a 'cop's' habit, but she drank way too much. And they were getting ready to leave. She excused herself, had to weave her way to the ladies' room. Was weaving her way back, when she bumped right into him.

"Hey, Alexandra Eames, long time no see."

She could see and smell that he was just as drunk as she was, just as unguarded. He took absolutely no effort to disguise his face so she knew he could see her instant terror, that he was getting off on it, and his leer left her feeling as violated as ever. On instinct, she recoiled with one solid step backwards and away from him. Right into Joe.

And then Joe knew who.

"_You goddamn sonofabitch!!" _

Joe shoved him hard and he stumbled back in slow motion and fell with an almost vaudevillian grace on his ass and some of the guys were hustling Joe out the door with hushed, _"jesus what's the matter with you?" _

Nothing was ever the same between them after that. Up until the night he was shot, Joe couldn't seem to look her straight in the eye. He started sleeping at work. Then, like it was some kind of sad inevitability, he started drinking, and coming home smelling like other women. His anger flowed like bile. And as bitterness does, it affected their taste for everything else. No more sweet, no more savory. Only bitter.


	22. Chapter 22

"Eames," he said in that way, like he was trying to get her attention even though she was sitting in his lap. "I don't want to do it anymore," his breath warm in her hair. "I want _this._" And he wasn't talking about the coffee, or the toast, the shower or the best sleep either of them had had in months, or the sex. He didn't even mean his partner sitting in his lap.

//

There are moments of truth in life. Usually they are fleeting, and it's only in retrospect that we can see them for what they are. Like the exact moment Joe's heart stopped beating and he was dead, and that after two days of watching him suffer and die like that, in the end, all she'd been left with was the knowing that this was what "_'Til death do we part_" meant. Nothing less, nothing more.

Sometimes, moments of truth are as plain as skywriting. They feel like nearby canon fire. Like a cymbal crash.

Like being on the job and coming around a corner and finding your own partner somewhere he really shouldn't be _and _with a very big gun pointed right at your head.

Or finding yourself in the arms (or on the lap) of a person whose happiness matters to you more than your own, knowing that you have to set in motion a thing that will force him to make an impossible choice. May cause him to cease to love you. Knowing you will do it anyway.

Like that.

//

She didn't want to do it anymore, either.

"Okay." she agreed as plainly as she could. "_This_."

Then, surprising him (But really? Not that much), she pushed herself out of his lap and crossed the kitchen to the counter, leaned against it, folded her arms under her breasts.

His sense of foreboding had been washing up and over him in unpredictable waves since he'd exploded out of that rare, deep and delicious sleep to the sound of this woman in the bathroom, _crying._

And anyway, he knew it was too good to be true.

"We have to talk. It can't wait. We need to clear some things up between us right now. I need to know everything that happened with this thing with you and Stoat, and … and then I've got some things I need to tell you, too. About me. I need to tell you everything about me."

Bobby gave her a very hard stare. Scrubbed his mouth with one hand.

"Okay," he nodded, "I think maybe you'd better go first."

While it is true that "everything" failed to include her brief association with ADA Kevin Mulrooney, she can be forgiven the oversight. Under the circumstances, he just wasn't that important.

//

Her version of this story is not the same as other people's version of this story - her father's, for example. Or her mom's. Or her sister's. In fact, even though she and her mother and her sister have startlingly similar stories, they've never compared notes.

John's story could be like this. His ancestors came across the rough sea on a tall ship with a very silly sounding name, just like legions of their kinsmen. Better, they decided, to face the unknown in Boston or New York and have a chance of a hope of a dream, than stay behind and first bear wretched witness while all the wee ones met their ends, then only starve to death themselves. Johnny's ancestors, like legions of their countrymen, arrived to find the only work available to them was the lowest paid, hardest and most dangerous work, the work no-one else wanted. And so, like all the tough lads from home, all unafraid of fighting with their bare fists, Johnny's ancestors stepped up to put on the blues of the NYPD. And kept that pride for generations. And still do. Johnny joined a brotherhood that has meant as much to him as anything else in his life, and maybe a little more. Which could be why his story became the sort of Biblical Proportions, rife with deadly sins and a brother's betrayal, and some violations of the Holy Commandments, too.

If she knew about it to tell it, the Matriarch Eames - a woman whose name is certainly something like Margaret or Helen or Pat - may have a similar family tale, of courage borne of desperation. Her story would be the sort that tells of extraordinary girls who dared to leave a future at home that was, at best, utterly bleak and hopeless, to cross the wild North Atlantic and start new in America. Like so many other extraordinary girls of their generation, they did this entirely on their own - no loving kin to guide them, no chaperones to guard their virtue. Once in America, these women bred women who have spines of steel. Now filled with the knowing of how unsafe a woman alone in the world can be, they married the toughest lads from Home - men with names like Kirkpatrick and Fitzgerald and Logan - made new homes and raised families and got on with things. In her own life, her own spine of steel has been an asset, and a source of pride. But aside from not being aware of the story of her own ancestresses, Alex Eames' mother is trapped in a body that has been ravaged by a series of strokes, which were themselves the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking and a two pack a day tobacco habit. She couldn't tell her story even if she wanted to.

Perhaps all that really needs to be known for sure about the elder Eames' version is that it ended when he left the police force and turned his back on the family the NYPD had been to him, and that he did that for the love of his wife. And Johnny is not sorry. He sends thanks to the heavens daily that it wasn't too late. And he'd do it again in a heartbeat. And Alex's mom, she feels the way she ought after fifty years of marriage to her husband - coveted, and safe.

But Elizabeth, who is very well aware that the sins of the father fall not on the sons but on the wives and on the daughters, would likely tell a story that would be akin to something from a rare, old collection of the Brother's Grimm, or even weirder tales. Hers would be filled with shape shifters and talking beasts, magic feathers, enchantments and lost children. If Liz told the story, the main character would be a girl with a lion's eyes and heart. Her version would be about tests and losses, sacrifices, and love. And redemption. She'd make it a ripping good yarn, a magnificent tale. It would be worthy, an 'Epic'. And even though she knows this story isn't over yet, Liz is an experienced optimist. She'd definitely give it a 'happily ever after.'

//

The story Alex told Bobby was based on the facts as she knows them. There was a preamble about how a lot of people in her family worked in public service - firefighters, paramedics, nurses, but mostly they were cops. Which was something he knew. No surprises there. And her version of their story mentioned 'bad blood', that there was some of that in the extended family. Some bad blood between her branch and some other branches, going back awhile.

When Bobby said, "Eames … " his voice already sounded a little plaintive. "Who?"

But Goren is a smart man. He'd already figured out what she hadn't been telling him. He stood up fast.

"He's your, … what? Your uncle?"

"Cousin. On my mom's side. His mother is my mom's sister. And his father and my dad came through the academy together. They worked together for years. They were tight."

"I … I would have noticed. Neither of you has ever behaved like you know each other. No sign."

"I said there's bad blood. Look, it's not really a secret, Bobby. I grew up here. Most of the NYPD knows about my family connections already."

"I didn't know."

There was a silence between them while he digested, sorted and stored this new information. Eames knew this was only number one of a series of blows - that he hadn't seen this for himself. Said,

"I know, and I'm sorry, Bobby. I should have told you."

But, she was telling him now. Now. Why now? Bobby's skin was crawling.

"So, is he … I, I'm not being paranoid. He really is trying to get me killed?"

"Maybe. Yes. I think so."

"You know why?"

Her silence was unnerving.

"Alex, why?"

She clicked into cop mode, sounded like she was giving evidence under oath. And, she was starting to scare him.

"He might be threatened by you, by your skills as a detective, your solve rate. And by our partnership."

"Why would he be threatened by our … by our partnership?"

She wouldn't make eye contact, couldn't seem to focus. A nasty wormy writhing feeling was growing up from his gonads.

"Eames?"

"He might be concerned that you might become party to certain information through your association with me. Information about our family, about him."

"Information that might compromise him professionally?"

"Yes, professionally. And personally."

"But he isn't threatened by you having this … this information, it concerns your family … or just you? It's about you?"

And now she wouldn't answer him. But he could smell her, even from across her kitchen. He was familiar with the smell of Eames in fear.

"Alex, please, tell me to stop thinking what I'm thinking."

Then, she faced him directly, showed him, and he knew. _Everything. _

Watching his face change as the hundred million levels of comprehension dawned, as all those odd little gaps and questions got filled in with this new information, was probably going to be the worst, long-playing, fraction of a second of her life.

Reaching blindly for the edge of the table, he said,

"Holy fuck."


	23. Chapter 23

A long-winded A/N: I'm nervous to post this. I'll tell you why. I don't think child abuse is funny, or entertaining. I am not doing this to exploit anybody, or cause any pain.

It's a story, a work of fiction. I've had a pretty good time going over some kind-of disturbing subject matter with the help of Goren and Eames. ('Mr. Cannibalistic Lonely Hearts', anyone? How about 'The Ogre and the Meat Grinder'? Or, how about Eames saving herself from a torture-killer?) So, I'm counting on folks to be reading in that spirit. This is creepy. It's yucky, icky, ew.

Also, this is my work of fiction. It has nothing at all to do with 'Law and Order: Criminal Intent' canon, or anything else officially relating to Dick Wolf and his exclusive rights to these amazing, wonderful characters. Like everyone else, I am borrowing without permission. My take on a certain character has nothing at all to do with said character's portrayal on the show, the actor who plays this character on the show, or on the actual human beings who work in real police forces. "Bad Cops" are a feature of the 'Law and Order' universe, and I needed a villain. He's already there, being detestable. It's a natural fit.

Good cops are a L&O feature, too. This story is about good cops.

**Strong Caution: Potentially triggering, upsetting, or disturbing. Read with care.**

* * *

"Holy fuck."

//

//

He might have narrowed his eyes dangerously, got so controlled and cold, and clenched his fists, said something like, I'm going to kill him. To which Eames (already regretting, already preparing to shut down) might have clicked her tongue with disgust, responded with something like, Don't be an ass, Bobby. You aren't going to kill him. And he might have told her something like, Watch me.

That certainly is a possibility.

They might have had a really big fight. A 'knock-down, drag-out, voices raised in anger, everything on the table' kind-of a fight. A heated attempt at some 'renegotiation.'

Bobby might have, very reasonably, demanded to know a few things, like, considering what had happened in, say, Pennsylvania, or considering, say, their going on how many year partnership, Eames? Why she hadn't mentioned this to him sooner?

And, _who _exactly she was protecting? He's quick. He's have started chipping away at_ that_ point immediately.

He might have got that way, the _'Eames, you know we have to_ …' way, and might have, in the heat of the moment, demanded to know if she even remembered that she's a cop? Or been incredulous, asked her, Do I even know you at all?

And Eames would likely have become angry and defensive about this, considering …

So she'd probably have used a louder sort of a voice to hand out a few reminders about the various ways he had shut down and shut her out, beginning more or less at exactly the same time that Captain Danny Ross appeared on their scene. Which was when the fact that she was being monitored by one of his cronies,

(and oh, he's not just my _evil fucking cousin Denny_ anymore, now he's my fucking boss, fucking _Chief Denny Moran, god help me_),

the fact that she was being_ watched_ and _reported on_ had more or less been made crystal clear to her.

She might have reminded him that she hadn't exactly had time or opportunity to clue him in, might have said something very caustic about bringing it up during her stay in the hospital, or maybe following one of those fun sessions with the shrink. Which wouldn't have been fair, and she'd have known it.

But there she'd have been, in the exact center of the sum of all her fears and not thinking clearly, and she might have said that it wasn't as though there had been anything like _actual intimacy_ between them since then, anyway. And he'd have known what she meant. She'd have been unable to stop from bringing it up. She'd have liked to be more graceful, refrained from mentioning how much it had been getting to her - and it had been bad enough before he got suspended, but now … how much it hurt, how hard it was to breathe, and how empty she felt and how her period had stopped, and how she couldn't sleep and she wasn't allowed to run and how she couldn't stand it and how much she needed him and that one fucking night wasn't going to be enough. And they'd both have been awash in shame, and desire.

And not being able to stop herself from bringing it up in anger would have made her so damn furious.

And she was already furious that he was in the crosshairs_ because of her_.

Furious because maybe if she had told him after Quinn's funeral ... should have told him after Pennsylvania. Should have told him when he came the night her nephew was born. Maybe even before then, maybe that night with the tequila. But, she should have a long time ago.

She was furious about how deeply frightened she was because Eames is a cop, the daughter of a cop, the widow of a cop. The partner of a cop. She knows, and she doesn't do fear.

So she might have pointed out that, since it looked as though _he was_, in fact, trying to get Bobby killed, that he'd seemed to have decided to make her the executioner. Would have made an inappropriate quip about it being his idea of 'funny'. Reminded Bobby again about the fact that_ anyone else would have shot him on instinct_, and he hadn't even been wearing a fucking vest. That if after their _how many year partnership, Bobby_? he couldn't offer her the courtesy of a phone call, could he at least have worn a goddamned fucking stupid vest? And her voice would have started to crack at this point, which would have made her furious.

All of which, because it was true, would have led him to feel even more responsible for everything than he already did. Would then in an angry or defensive or reflexive movement of self-protection - (because he has a soft underbelly, too) - lead him very unwisely to shift away from his empathy just when he needed it most, and start intellectually analyzing why she was behaving in such an illogical manner about something that he knew was a cut and dry issue for her.

And, because by then she might have been deeply truly, fully upset, even triggered a little bit into an altered state, she might have reminded him that this was _her life_, not a case.

She might have even crossed the line. Told him that just because she let him tie her up and do whatever he wanted, that didn't entitle him to any additional considerations in her life.

Which would have been a direct hit.

Considering everything and their unspoken agreements about all things relating to Pennsylvania, with all that had happened to her and all he had discovered about himself, he'd likely have started to come apart a little bit.

And Eames, who as a matter of her survival needs to not feel cornered or trapped or left without an avenue of escape, she may have smelled blood in the water and may have lashed out and said a few more things that she'd never be able to take back, like that, since he was presumably a fucking certifiable genius, why hadn't he figured this out for himself back sometime around '02? Which is a question that, regardless of whether it's ever asked out loud, will punch a great big hole right through the middle of him.

And maybe, maybe it would have been all over right there and then.

//

//

None of that happened though.

All those things and many, many more were thought of, and all the crackling, volatile emotion was there.

But he's still Robert Goren. She's still Eames.

What happened was that he sat back down in the kitchen chair and started to cry.

He didn't take his eyes off her face for a long, terrible moment first. Looking, maybe, for this to be a mistake. For a sign that it was not true. Then, closed his eyes, turned away, started to cry.

She didn't seem to have anything to say. It was seven thirty on a Sunday morning, a beautiful spring morning. She was still leaning against the counter with her arms akimbo and her eyes narrowed. Waiting.

And he was still crying.

"Stop it." she hissed at him.

But he couldn't. Not to save his life.

"I can't." he said. And she watched him crying just a little longer, then crossed to him and knelt at his feet and wrapped her arms around his legs as best she could and laid her head in his lap. His hands were wet with tears and snot and he wiped them off on his shirt as best he could and pushed them into her hair and held her head and sobbed.

In a little time, she was back sitting in his lap letting him hold her while she held him.

Over and over he said it.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I'm sorry."

//

//

Of all the things he could have picked to say next,

"Eames," he said. "Mark Ford Brady was my father."

* * *

so, yeah.


	24. Chapter 24

**Dick Wolf's. i think this is all swirling out of daystar searcher's stories, maybe scribere est agere's too. and i see that ciaddict and i have the same brain ... thanks for the reminder, JamiW.**

**I've never actually been to Seattle. Even though I live not too far from there, I might have it all wrong. Sorry Seattle. I've never been to New York, either. Just making educated guesses.**

* * *

Seattle was a case of 'water, water everywhere'. He made the reference, but she would have if he hadn't.

"At least there's coffee to drink."

The only scent more pervasive than the fishy, briny sea was roasting beans. She was in her glory, a tall strong hot custom dark roast latte in her hand, purchased from another hauntingly-lovely young girl with dred locks and low-slung cargo fatigues and five visible piercings. Seattle was beautiful in the early fall. Warm as summer, clear-skied, free of tourists.

The volcano was something to behold.

"It's very 'volcano-like'. Kind of reminds me of Mt. Fuji," she said. "I guess if this one goes, it'll make a real mess of the city."

"Yup. They have uh, volcano eruption evacuation plans."

"I guess everybody has a safety plan," Eames said, sipping her custom dark roast latte. "Everybody is ready to run at the drop of a hat."

They had arrived early in the afternoon, took their rental car straight to Fieldstone Center for Women to interview young Ellie Graham, the deserving inmate suddenly transferred far, far away from New York. Far from truths hidden there. Far from the powerful man using all his power to preserve his lies.

Then they checked in, and set up in his room. It was a nicer hotel, near downtown. Each of their rooms held a queen sized bed flanked by clean-lined tables, wall sconce light fixtures above. Tasteful bedspreads, modern dressers, lamps. Each room featured a large, numbered and signed art print by a local up-and-comer, a table and a pair of modest upholstered chaises in coordinating shades of grey, green, blue. Lots of natural light, a sliding patio door, close-by sounds of a harbour. A view.

She plugged in her department issue laptop, logged on. They made phone calls, took notes. Made phone calls, traced leads. Made more phone calls, and found the trail of a business loan application. Gave each other a high five.

It was seven o'clock Pacific time, ten in New York.

She talked to the captain at length about minor developments in the Bethany Lunden case, getting as much as she could from him to share with Bobby. Then updated him on their progress with this interview in the Hendry matter.

"Okay, good job. Now, go get some grub," the Captain told her. "And that's an order. I'm going home before my wife divorces me. I'll see you two tomorrow around when, mid afternoon?"

She logged off, unplugged her department issue laptop.

They went looking for some grub. Walked, and looked, and picked a country and western tavern-style restaurant - the kind that served steaks as big as dinner plates.

"Hey," Bobby was interested by the open concept kitchen set up, the gargantuan range hood. "They're using a wood-fired grille."

It was a Tuesday night - 'Dart League Night' the chalkboard showing the dinner specials declared. The place was nearly deserted. There was a mounted bison head over the door, neon beer signs, and a dance floor. There was an old-fashioned juke box. They made a well-known joke about it, said it had an excellent selection of both country _and_ western music.

"Hey, will you dance with me?"

"Are you joking?"

He wasn't joking, not one bit. He was as earnest as he could be, considering the proposal was that they - a pair of overdressed New York City detectives in Seattle on a case - hit the dance floor and two step to some Willy Nelson.

"But I don't even have my cowboy boots with me."

"You have cowboy boots?"

She had to smile. "Okay, let's dance."

Everything felt so good, _so very good_. The giant steaks, cooked smoky-rare. The homey accompaniments - mealy baked potato, simple salad of tender greens, warm soft bread. The chill of the foamy draft beer, the bite of bitter hops on her tongue before their food came, and the warming perfection of the red wine they drank with it. The talking about nothing that was important.

And the songs. He traded a ten for a pile of quarters, and they played, 'tit for tat'. They chose some just as background, some for dancing. They played 'Coal Miner's Daughter' and 'Driving My Life Away', 'Peaceful Easy Feeling' and 'Folsom Prison Blues'. They chose two by Dolly Parton, and Hank Williams - both of them. Then good old Randy Travis.

"Bobby, really? You want to dance to _this_?"

They laughed really hard a few times.

"Okay, here comes a dip,"

"I don't think that's such a good … !"

"I've got you, it's okay."

It might have been a date. It could have been their honeymoon.

She was coming out of the bathroom, cheeks flushed pink and tawny eyes sparkling, a tune in her mouth and a smile on her lips, when she bumped right into him.

"Hey! Eames! Long time no see!"

//

He had used his key card to open and close his door for no particular reason three times so far. For some reason, she found his attention to this detail irresistible. She had to tease him.

"That wouldn't convince anyone who was really checking. It wouldn't convince me or you."

He didn't answer, just glanced at her from under his eyebrows.

"You going to make sure to leave your fingerprints all over your room, too? Maybe roll around in the bed and leave some dna behind, just in case?"

"No, uh …"

"You already did, didn't you?"

"No," his smile was playful, he was playing along. "Just the fingerprints."

In her room, they settled on her bed, but she could feel him watching her.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she said even though they both knew it was a lie.

"How can I help?"

She sighed. Looked at her hands where they were in her lap instead of at his face where she couldn't stand to see an expression that might have been like pity, might have been like _poor you, Eames._

"I'm fine." Gathered her courage, smiled up quickly at him, tucking away the confusing, incomprehensible feeling of doom that had come up out of a pit in her guts and that maybe came straight from hell, but there it was. As soon as she saw Don Ryan, _Detective _Don Ryan, formerly of NYPD Vice and formerly (it turned out) of Brooklyn, New York, and now of Seattle, Washington and - a friendly and effusive man - he pulled her into a consuming bear hug.

Then laughingly said, "Hey, I'm sorry, Eames! I forgot, you're not the hug type. But you know, it's just great to see a face from home! How the hell are ya? What are youse doin' here? Seattle PD make you an offer you couldn't refuse, too?" They laughed. "It's a little New York joke. The guys at work call me 'godfather', on account of the accent. Hey, guys!" he waved over at the group of well-ironed fifty-somethings gathered near the dart board. "Seattle PD dart league." he explained. "So, who you here with?"

And she led him to the table, introduced him,

"My partner, Robert Goren."

They shook hands. And Don was so excited to see cops from 'home' in his neighbourhood bar that he made the guys all come over and introduced them all around.

"Eames here can put a guy twice her size down in high heels and mini skirt, and I'm not joking. I've seen her do it," He boasted of her prowess.

She tried not to cringe as five sets of eyes snapped to her body, knowing they were all picturing her in that mini skirt, wishing Don and the guys could please just fuck off and go away. Smiling all the while like she was so glad to be seeing him, too.

Eames is such a good sport.

Bobby made the excuses quickly - the time difference, the early flight, still reports to finish, just taking a dinner break …

He could see and smell the difference in her. Could see that, while she looked like she was still there, she was actually gone.

Now, sitting next to him on the edge of her queen size hotel room bed, she could feel him watching her like he was looking for her.

"Is it okay if I open the window?"

"Sure."

The night air wasn't yet cooled. He returned to sit near her, was still watching.

"What?"

"What, uh, lotion is that? Are you using"

"It was in the bathroom. It's the hotel lotion. You know, I was curious."

He was frowning.

"I like the way your usual lotion smells better."

"You do? You and your damn nose. It's right there, in the top of my bag. See the small thing with the zipper? Yeah, that one."

He reached over and pulled the thing from her bag. His interest suddenly spiked.

"Is this … are these your cosmetics?"

"Yeah. What?"

"Can … . Uh, never … uh, mind."

"What? What?"

"I … want. I … it's something. Deviant."

"You want … my makeup?"

He lifted his eyebrows twice, treated her to his most adoring smile. "No, and you're funny. You should have just seen your face. No. I want to … can I?" He held up the little cloth sack.

Why should such a request make her heart start to jump and pound like that?

"Okay."

He was giddy. Bounced off the bed and took off for the bathroom. She shrugged out of her dressy jacket.

Heard water running. Could feel his delight through the wall, heard him busying himself. Then he was back with a warm, wet cloth.

He pulled an upholstered chaise up to the bed, gathered the pillows to set up around her, said,

"Lean back."

First was a face wash. Water temperature just perfect, cloth not too wet. Gentle, gentle patting, washing, lifting grime. No soap, just warm water. He disappeared to refresh the cloth twice. She felt sparkly when he was done.

Then he inspected every little case and compact of shadow and powder, sniffed quite a few. He passed over things like foundation makeup in favour of moisturizers.

Her eyes were closed while he massaged the last of a lotion into the skin above her temples.

"Okay, this officially feels surreal. You sure you don't have a second career in a spa?"

"Mmmmm. Nope. Just the uh, the … my mother's hospital."

//

She knew about Frances. They've always spent a lot of time alone, together, in a neat, black sport utility vehicle that was manufactured in the heart of America. They've talked a lot, about cases, and about other things.

So, she knew. How especially after his father left, his _everything _depended on Frances being 'okay'. He didn't need to say how frightening her illness became as time passed, how less and less able she was to work. Then, the ensuing poverty, and shame - hers as well as his and Frank's. And Frank escaped, slinking away to ball practice or science club meeting or …

For Bobby, it wasn't being with kids his own age or having fun that kept him balanced and grounded. His main efforts during those years were to find something, _anything_, that could consistently calm her down, keep her from breaking away.

Frances breaking away was the worst possible thing.

He told Eames, "When she has a break, she's gone for - at first it would be a couple of hours. But now it's days. Sometimes weeks."

Books. When he was a teenager books almost always worked, Eames knew. Frances loved literature. She loved every story. Bobby told her, he would bring home bags of library books. It started when she had shown sudden interest in the Greeks. He had brought home a volume of Aesop. "I love these stories," Frances told her son, holding the thick volume to her chest. Then, he brought Homer and Hesiod, and he read her _The Oresteia_. She would relax into stories of far away. Later on, he brought 'Inklings' - everything by Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis. In ninth grade, he started on the Americans - J.D. Salinger (No, not that one, Bobby. Read 'Franny and Zooey'), Harper Lee, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane. If she was well, she'd take the books and shoo him away. If she was ill, he would sit beside her bed and read aloud.

"Bobby, I feel so agitated," she would tell him. "My heart is beating so fast. It's stuffy in here. I can't breathe, it's so stifling. Can't you open the window?"

With the patience that can only come from deep love, he would do whatever she asked him, ("Bobby, can't you see it's freezing in here? I could catch my death before you even noticed! Close that window! I'm so thirsty, I need a glass of water. Could you get one for me? Where is Frank?"), then, he would return to their place in the book.

"Stephen Crane, pah!" She was feeling funny and chatty after he finished 'The Red Badge of Courage'.

"The Naturalists. I don't think they were all so smart. 'No free will.' What is that? Didn't God give us free will? Isn't that why we're out of the garden? Well, this sure isn't a garden." She would follow her own train of thought. She told him, "I say, 'life is what you make it.' Stephen Crane is good, Hemingway is better though. Those men, they write about the sea - what do they know about the sea? Herman Melville was a real sailor. You can give me Melville any day over Crane. Even over Hemingway."

He brought her Emily Dickinson. "Oh," Frances would sigh. "Her poems are like food into my heart."

When he was able to find a way to pull her away from the rawness of her suffering, to distract her from the muffled voices that terrorized her, the aggressive colours and the dream of the close-together lines that wanted to tear and rip her skin … when he could keep her demons at bay and sometimes even make her smile, his world was filled with peace, light and joy.

When there was no way to soothe Frances, all was bleak, all was despair.

//

And so, it isn't true that it would not have mattered what Eames wanted. That his secret, profound need was to dominate her, control her, overpower her.

(That was _her_ shameful secret.)

His weakness was that he understood.

Eames' body was a minefield, a treacherous ground of pitfalls and traps, surprising places, any of which, once touched, would send her into a state of numbed, deadened separation. Out of her body. Away. She'd still look like Eames, mostly. She'd even be able to function like Eames, be efficient and effective and organized. Interview witnesses and suspects, solve cases, do paperwork. But he knew, because he'd seen it, that the real Eames would really be gone.

And nothing sent her out of her body and away faster than an unexpected, gentle, loving caress.

/

"Context is everything. A caress can be like a slap, or even worse than that," he heard someone say once, and anyone can tell you --that's true.

/

('Pain doesn't have to hurt,' she said to him. 'This can be gentle. This can be with love.' He knows this is also true. )

/

"I want what I want," he told her the night in that motel room in Pennsylvania. At that time, she was trembling violently in her white bra and panties, straining against the bindings holding her legs together.

"What do you want?" Her voice was low, ragged.

"I want to find you." His fingertips along her spine. His whisper near her ear, breath on her shoulder. "I know you're there, Alex. You're hiding. Why? … Why are you hiding?"

Not easing off, not backing off, and she was writhing and yet still somewhere else, seeing herself and not able to _believe_ that she was tied up with belts and a necktie and being held still and in place by her partner and going out of her mind with the need to have him push it harder, farther, and harder. Coming out of her mind, into her body, into her own cells and her gloriously alive cunt. Not able to believe that he was saying,

"Do you know that I can be patient? We can go slow. I can wait. I want to. _That's what I want."_

//

In Seattle, he only touched her face. Nothing else.

He said, "You know that you have facial hair?"

She laughed. "Why yes, Bobby, you're such a helpful guy! I did know that. See those tweezers? No, I did not mean, 'get those tweezers.' Don't even think about it."

They both laughed.

Overall, she mostly got a languid, drowsy feeling from the entire venture, the quiet clicks and snaps of plastic compact lids being opened and shut, and soft shuffling sounds seeming to come more and more from a distance. Then his touch on her face like butterfly kisses,

"Open, …" and, "Close."

Mascara on lashes.

His thumb resting on her cheekbone. A soft brush sweeping. The sound of his breaths, deep and even.

She took a cleansing breath, felt herself relax another degree. And she couldn't say why, but she felt like crying.

Eventually, "Okay, there."

She looked exactly the way she should. She'd didn't know why, but she'd been expecting him to make her look sort-of slutty. But no. He was still Bobby. It was perfect. Every colour, shade, shadow was exactly as it should be. Eyeliner and mascara were perfect. Better even than she would have done herself. Everything but the lipstick.

"Wow," she said. She choked up. "Wow. You spend a lot of time looking right at me."

"It's okay?"

"I think you forgot lipstick."

"No I didn't. Forget. I just … well. I want to taste _you_."

And kissed her. Kissed her until she was breathless, then kissed her more. Breathless kisses, only their faces touching.

They slept for awhile on top of the tasteful bedspread, holding hands. She woke when he disengaged his fingers from hers, slipped off the bed, slid noiselessly from her room. But that's not exactly right either. Because first, he lifted her hands to his lips, then disentangled their fingers with feather-light touches here, and here. Leaned his face in close, dipped into her more deeply than she expected he would, into her through her sleepy eyes, and she gasped just a bit, smiled in a shy way that he found he needed to kiss and then, pulled himself away abruptly and slid noiselessly from the room

She rose and went to shower. Her lips were swollen, the surrounding skin rubbed red by his two-day beard. "People are going to notice this," she sighed at her reflection.

It was almost like she was trying to get caught. Trying.

_What would you accomplish with that, Alex? She asked the eyes in her reflection. _

_T_hey left their rooms at five thirty to make their seven o'clock flight east.

And that was Seattle.


	25. Chapter 25

**A tip of my hat to likeit. (Most excellent critiques, my dear. I am improved.) Heartfelt thanks to most excellent fanfic readers and writers for mountains of support. This crazy unicorn is humbled.  
**

* * *

It was too much. Right now was too much.

Right now, too many things were passing back and forth through that shimmering membrane - the Looking Glass-Alice backwards reflection of herself and her own life behind which she kept these things. She had chosen to leave some things over there in the pearly blue half-light.

Right now there was her truth. There was his truth. The membrane was a belling and bowing. Cracks were going to appear. Then the things that were over there were going to flow unchecked to this side - a pool of tears. She'd drown in it all.

Sitting in his lap, she put her hands on his face. Told him,

"I have to run."

"Okay," he said, "I'm coming too."

//

//

Some people get into cutting when they're numb. Like young Regan Radcliff with her loneliness and her rage and her long ragged sleeves pulled down to cover. Or maybe they get into drinking, drugging. Or fucking, like Regan Radcliff's mother. Like lots of people. Eames gets that. One-nighters and hangovers and married liars.

She could have gone that way.

The body holds onto the memory of things that happen. It's how we can manage to do such complicated things with such ease - walk, write, drive a car. Play a guitar. Shoot a gun. Our bodies remember.

It's the same with trauma. The body remembers everything that happened. It's one of the reasons why people don't like to talk about it - talking is like remembering _in action_. And all the things that happened, the little details that are just right there, tucked inside the larger memory - all the sensory phantoms and spectral terrors, (hands doughy and sweaty, low smell of his breath, texture of upholstery fabric, sound of him breathing through his nose, colour of the sky), talking brings all these things back up to the surface.

Who wants that? Maybe some kind of masochist.

She might appreciate a little well-placed erotic pain stimulus now and then, sure. But Eames is no masochist.

Still, she gets it - the urge to relive it, _feel it_ all over again. Then while it's right there at the surface, _kill it. _Kill the rest of anything that might be like really feeling.

At one time, this might have seemed like all she'd been left with. And because Eames is a good sport, she might have pretended it was something like _fun. _

But then, the miracle.

Now she wants something else.

//

When she gets stretched so numb inside that she feels like she might just need to cease to exist for awhile, instead of doing any of those things, she runs. She runs and runs and runs and runs. Running is free, and she can do it until she is unable to keep doing it. She can rest, then do it again.

She has an always-varying route in her neigbourhood. She likes best the run up the low, gentle hill to the top where that old ash tree is growing. She has to push it to keep her pace to the top of the hill. She thinks that the ash tree has been growing in that spot on the top of the hill since before the city was there. It's been growing there for that long. That tree will still be there after she in her grave, and everything she knows will be in her grave with her. The tree will stand, and she will rot, and that's how important all this shit is. She thinks as she reaches the tree and circles it, veering right and into the park. Running on the trail, running to the track for one measured mile, or maybe two, then back. I'll be dead and all this shit won't matter because it never did matter, and that tree will still be standing there. She thinks. It hurts. She runs until she can't think anymore. She runs until it hurts.

She runs and runs.

//

//

Not a jogger, he was waiting (near enough to see her running the track, distant enough for her to be alone,) leaning against the big tree, under cover of it's fresh green.

He stepped out to meet her as she approached, dropping her jog to a walk, cooling down.

"You okay?"

"Just a little out of shape. It's been awhile."

She walked around the tree once, twice, blowing, hands on hips. Circled the tree again, swinging her arms.

"These trees are in die off all over the world. Maybe climate change," he remarked. She gave him a long stare.

"You're sure? Brady for sure?"

He kept his gaze shifting from her face to the ground between them.

"Yeah."

She was unwavering. Kept walking to cool down, kept her golden eyes on him. Kept staring. Didn't look away. And he relaxed a little bit.

//

//

He was holding her hand, right there in the booth in the diner. Had pushed their squat diner coffee cups aside, plates, juice glasses. Was holding her hand loosely in his, thumb in motion. And right across the table, where anyone could see them. Anyone they knew could see them.

He looked different somehow. As though the last traces of what might have been his youthfulness had been rubbed completely away. Maybe she looked different too. Maybe nothing would ever seem funny again.

Eames is a disciplined person and she can usually decide what she will think about, and for how long. But this morning sitting in the booth in this diner, she was trying her hardest not to sink into the space between these two memories - when he was there, rubbing her feet. When he walked away and didn't look back.

He was there now. Looking right at her.

"Hey Alex," he said, and smiled. "I know who you are."


	26. Chapter 26

Things Eames doesn't know:

*

*

*

That she was exactly seven.

(It was her sister Liz who was five turning six.)

**

**

**

That Joe actually confronted dear old cousin Denny. Came at him on the street outside the front door of a cop bar. His wife's directive to _stay out of it, Joe, don't get involved_ (which was all she'd ever say, no matter how mad he got), now forgotten or disregarded in the white-hot pureness of his rage and outrage.

Young, honest, affable, unwise, Joe Dutton wasn't prepared for this - Moran was waiting for him. Was hoping he'd be the sort of young hot head who'd come around looking to avenge his woman's honour. He'd been looking forward to it. Said some choice things out loud to young Dutton, a few unnecessarily crude things, just before knocking a round out of him.

"Come on, pup. Show me what you got."

"_I'm gonna fuckin kill you!"_

"Sure you are."

Guys going in had stopped it before anything besides Joe's lip and pride had been really damaged, and he had reeled off down the street to the sound of laughter - Moran's and some other's - into the night, his shoulders slumped.

"What a putz," someone had commented at Joe's retreating form before the remains of the gathered crowd broke apart, drifting into the bar or off towards home.

Eames doesn't know this;

"Uh, Buddy there said his wife was a fantastic piece of ass, so you figure it out."

That this was the shocking answer someone had given to a question: _'What was all that about?'_

Eames doesn't know that three different cops who were there and who heard this question and answer got the significance of the statement.

"I don't know if he's a putz, but it better not be true." Frowning, world-weary and a late witness to the scuffle, one good cop said this to anyone listening.

"What's it to you?

"Let's just say I'm no fan of Greek Tragedy."

***

***

***

Eames doesn't know that the frowning, world-weary cop talked about this incident with a close friend, a confidante whose personal and professional integrity and discretion were absolutely without parallel. Eames doesn't know that the grizzled cop told his companion that he had never been able to get the incident out of his head, just could not get the image of that guy walking away into the darkness like that out of his head. That it troubled him, maybe because the younger guy had been killed on the job not too long after that, but maybe because he was still no fan of Greek Tragedy.

"What's this 'Greek Tragedy' business, Lennie?" This trusted companion asked him.

And he told her a story.


	27. Chapter 27

She had been known to tell the living _there's a reason she would rather work with the dead_. But she liked Eames. She actually liked a lot of people, but she wasn't about to let them know it.

Alex Eames was different though. Liz appreciated her particular ironic slant on everything she saw, heard, knew - especially the constant sex-power politics that strangled the joy out of the job. Some of Eames' observation would keep Liz smiling in spite of herself, and often hours after they'd parted company.

In a way, she reminded her of another dear, ironic, sarcastic, funny, funny friend. She felt like they were all from the same tribe. That she and Alex were 'Sisters'. Alex felt that way, too.

They had a planned dinner date at a nearby restaurant every other month or so. At dinner, they talked about everything but work. They talked about shoe sales and rents in the city, local politics, state politics, urban planning, micro gardening, music and books. They talked a lot about books. They shared books, recommended books, exchanged lists of favourite books, favourite authors. They always drank vodka martinis and ordered dessert, and they always laughed a lot.

Liz never talked about her early life, or her first and only marriage. She never talked about Lennie. Alex never discussed her enormous, extended family of public servants. She never mentioned Joe.

They did other things together. Once a year, they attended a benefit reading of 'The Vagina Monologues' at NYU, laughed their guts out_. Didn't _cry. And every year, at the end, when they were invited to stand and be recognized and be welcomed into the community of those who have survived, they would without a word grip each other's hand and rise with all the other women and men who have survived.

They saw movies, more infrequently. But a couple times a year, one or the other would get a text or a phone call or even a visit,

"I thought this one looked like it might not be a waste of time. I loved the book and they're saying 'Oscar worthy performance'."

"I was thinking the same thing. Saturday?"

"If you're thinking the early show, then it's a date."

//

//

Eames has her own kind of nose. She has a nose for bullshit. She can smell it coming a mile away. She can detect the most minute traces. And she could smell Moran's brand all over the dead tourists in Red Hook.

Because she fucked up during the Quinn investigation, she knew it. And she still didn't know where she'd pulled the nerve. But, having actually directly addressed him for the first time since the night her mother had her stroke, having found enough nerve to open her mouth and make anything come out of it in his general direction, to have been able to tell him _anything, _But no, she had to tell him what, _and _in front of other men, especially in front of his mopey-eyed boot licker, in front of Bobby … . She knew. He wasn't going to let it pass.

She looked at the dead lying there and thought something like '_what kind of fuckery is this_?' It looked as though someone had dropped a major case on the sidewalk - two tourists and one drug dealer? Someone wanted people to believe something had happened here. A drug deal gone bad? Then, Daniels, and his simple question, _Why leave the coke on him_? Why, indeed. She wanted to glance up and catch Bobby's eye to see if he was thinking the same thing. Caught herself in time, this time. It was like she said to Daniels.

_He's still jumping through NYPD hoops._

Her nose was warning her though, this was pure unadulterated bullshit, and some of it was about to hit the fan.

When Daniels strolled into the morgue that beautiful Easter Sunday and Ross handed her a temporary new partner, she knew it was going to be bad. She knew in her marrow. Her captain was gone. Her partner was gone. And just like the night Joe was shot, she felt her knees turn soft. She thought as quietly as she could, _o god._ _o god. o god._

Out loud she said, _Until Goren comes back. _

It was as close as she'd come to cracking in a long time.

/

/

Later on, when she was able, it was to Rodgers she went.

"You okay, Eames?"

She didn't answer that question, wouldn't answer it - not right now. She scratched her forearms, leaned against the counter edge.

"What's the word on this?"

"I don't know anything at all about it." Rodgers crossed her arms across her front.

"Please. I need to know."

"He isn't the 'talk shop' type, Alex. And anyway, we aren't, … we aren't close right now. Sorry, I … "

Eames nodded.

"You know I love you, right?" Rodgers surprised Eames. "I'd say if I know. I don't."

"Hey Liz, I'm sorry to ask."

"I know."

Liz squeezed her arm lightly, then surprised Eames again, leaned in and gave her a quick hug.

"What was that for?"

"Luck, I think."

//

//

Liz Rodgers was sure of some things. The only uncertainty was what to do about it.

She was still reeling, frankly, dizzy and lightheaded, from the day in the lab when Eames brought her an evidence bag containing a menthol cigarette butt to run for a trace of anything at all. Because she realized. And felt sick. Couldn't look Eames in the eye when she came for the results. Could only manage, "I'm sorry about your husband. I didn't know." Was ashamed of the half-truth.

Didn't want to be the one to tell her.

And Liz was filled with her fractured loathing for humankind, because she took one look at her face and knew exactly what Eames was thinking. (They had been wrong about who killed Joe Dutton.) They had been wrong. They had lied. (_They _had lied. They had. (_Who _had?) _They had.)_

_T_o be the one to tell her, to be able to tell her she was wrong about that, too. No tender mercy. To tell her it was just some guy named Manny Beltran. Just a mistake.

She could have quelled her own feeling of anxiety for what might have come next. She could have let it go, again.

But the day Eames came to her morgue to ask about those dead tourists and one drug dealer in Red Hook, she saw that she had made the wrong decision about this.

Unsure but resolved, she got changed out of her blue scrubs, into her outside clothes - black slacks, white sweater, green jacket, shoes. She headed out of the complex. Headed away from One Police Plaza, and pulled her cell phone from her pocket.


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: A warning. Some potentially upsetting stuff in here. Please, read with care. **

**This is still my work of fiction. It has nothing to do with Mr. Wolf's ideas about these characters. I am infringing, but no harm intended. Big thanks to everyone who is sticking with me as I work my way through this slowly-unfolding yarn. Questions are always welcome. Send me a pm.  
**

* * *

Family holidays, feasts, and gatherings. Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals. Graduations. Camping at the lake. Grandma and Grandpa's. Everything she loved.

He was always there.

She and Joe had been married as civilians. The whole extended family would have needed to be invited to a wedding of uniformed officers, and she was damned if she was going to. Joe saw that fierce look and never asked. Just joked about looking like a waiter. Joe was like that.

She remembered what it was like before it started. Lizzie didn't seem to remember anything at all, but she remembered what _a normal life _felt like. She and Lizzie being in matching shorts-and-tee-shirt sets. Having red sandals because red haired girls should have red sandles, Mom said. She remembered running fast and trying her hardest to keep up with the great pack of running boys that included her brothers and her cousins. Always making sure to take care of her little sister, too.

The grown-ups played games two or three times a week. They sat at the table with their cigarette contraptions and paper tubes and tins of tobacco. Mom and Auntie Betty played cards or Scrabble or dominoes and drank whisky and lemon, and dad and Uncle Don hung around outside and smoked their stinky cigars. And eventually joined the women at the table and a new game would start - maybe bridge. Or gin rummy.

When the grown-ups sent them to bed, their kisses good-night were boozy and sloppy, and the boys would troop downstairs to their domain. And she and Liz would head upstairs to the room they shared. And he'd say,

"I'll read the girls a bedtime story."

And everyone would say what a responsible young man he was, what a real chip off the old block he was. Was going to be a _great cop_. That's what they'd say.

"Long time no see," he'd say. And giggle, like it was so funny. She would put herself between him and her sister.

"You shouldn't be here. We have to go to sleep now. You have to leave us alone."

"_You _have to be quiet, or I'll tell your mom."

"Get out of our bedroom!" Fearsome Alex Eames would tell him.

"_Who's gonna make me_?" Denny Moran would smirk back.

For reasons she did not understand, it seemed incredibly important that her parents _not find out_.

And he was older - almost a grown man. She believed him. At first, she believed him.

//

//

She made him stop. All by herself. (With the help of her father's loaded Smith and Wesson .38 Special snubnose revolver, which she'd taken with shaking hands from his bedside table earlier in the evening.) The sound of the gun being cocked surely did stop him right in his tracks, big man that he was now in his dark blue uniform.

"If you touch my sister ever again I'll kill you," she told him. Matter-of-fact. And he must have believed her. He slid back the way he came, letting the veneer slip aside just once more, letting her see his real face. Then he was gone.

He never tried to get into their room again. He never bothered Liz again, either.

He never bothered Liz again.

//

//

Senior year. Early summer. There were eight or so of them at the picnic tables by the basketball courts and they were drinking white wine. She was world-was-spinning drunk. They all hushed when the little car pulled up, and she just knew.

He came out with his big department issue flashlight, the beam in their faces. He was wearing his uniform.

"You kids get out of here. Get home," he told them all. "Alexandra, get in the car. I'll take you home myself. Your father is going to hear about this from me."

As her friends slunk off into the darkness, grateful for not being the ones escorted home by some uncle or cousin or brother, she thought she heard somebody murmur something about it being a raw deal, growing in a cop family … .

_//_

_//_

This is how life turns on a dime.

_(took care of what needed to be taken care of herself. and she never told anyone.)_

Then found that she was being dogged by questions that had taken root somewhere, maybe in the torn space in her soul that was the aftermath of the awful thing. That they were being broadcast repeatedly in a rhythmic pattern, like a heartbeat.

_What is me?_

_What am I for?_

_Will I be forgiven?_

_Who forgives God?_


	29. Chapter 29

To his dying day, Bobby Goren would be able to say the scariest thing he ever saw was Elliot Stabler's smile. Not his every smile, mind you. Just the smile that afternoon in the bar, the one that came three and a half heartbeats after Bobby told him,

"There is forensic evidence."

//

-

//

If you had a chance, you could ask Elliot Stabler about it. It's these people - the survivors - who keep him going back to his job, month after month, year after year. You could ask him about brave people like Eames. He could tell you some things.

That's if he didn't scare the hell out of you first with that unnerving stare of his, and if you were lucky enough that he didn't think he was wasting his time talking to you. He'd probably swing a chair around backwards and straddle it, and tell you.

About coping strategies like denial, numbing, forgetting. Kids, especially, tend to forget. But not really. No-one really ever forgets.

But he'd tell you about people whose abuse histories have left them with fractured lives. Have led them into lives and situations that are every bit as horrific as the things they're struggling to keep forgotten. Alcohol abuse, drug addiction, sexual dysfunction. Worse. About how these people endure and shrug and carry on with the business of living with astonishing grace. Often with true forgiveness in their hearts. Not just surviving but also turning back to face their own victimization to do whatever they can to help rescue and heal others.

He'd tell you - _he sees it all the time._

He could tell you some things about the kinds of people who abuse children, too. He knows a lot about those people.

He'd tell you, for example, that they look and act exactly the same as everyone else.

Maybe then he'd check his watch and say something about needing to go, about promising Kathy he'd be home early. But, first since you asked he'd tell you some more about the disgusting perverts who prey on children - he'd say something like that. Because those are two things about Stabler - he doesn't suffer fools, and he doesn't mince words when it comes to this shit.

If you'd asked him, he'd describe different kinds of strategies that predatory pedophile offenders use to generate doubt, disbelief, and confusion - especially within unsuspecting families. He could tell you all about their amazing efforts to generate confusion, about 'crazy making' tactics.

Because there's something else about this kind of crime that is important to know - healthy, 'normal' adults find the idea so repugnant, they don't want to believe it. Sometimes can't believe it. No-one is trying to be willfully ignorant, but it's true.

And healthy disbelieving people might look everywhere for an explanation. They might look at learning disabilities, drug use, question mental health, blame peer groups or video games or the internet. Anything.

Healthy disbelieving adults will often look at anything except at the very real chance that '_Uncle Ernie' (… no, not Uncle Ernie, not him! It's not possible, I know Uncle Ernie and he's a good guy and I can't see him … no, no. no, it's not true, it can't be true, not Uncle Ernie, not him! It's not possible … ) _that Uncle Ernie could be doing something he shouldn't be doing.

That would be crazy.

Abusers will use this. Casting doubt on the sanity of victims and potential witnesses is a common way offenders maintain control.

Obviously, this is much easier to do if potential witnesses are already suspected of being _not right in the head. _

//

-

//

Bobby didn't know Elliot Stabler. He knew who he was (the NYPD is a small town), but they'd never met.

Bobby did know Fin Tutuola from his time in Narcotics. So it was Fin who got a call from Goren. He had some questions, hypothetical questions, and he wanted to know if they could get together for a beer.

That Stabler was there with Fin, apparently waiting for a chance to talk to him, was only moderately surprising to Bobby at this point. Of course, everyone in the department knew who Eames was. It was her escape from Jo Gage. How many people do that? With a head injury? ('_Still wearing her high heels, too, I hear_' they said in every precinct.)

But that wasn't why or how Stabler had first come to hear of Alex Eames, and it wasn't why he was waiting to talk to her partner.

Elliot is a family man. He takes his family to NYPD recreation events. Summer barbecues, Christmas parties. And he's _a guy_. He can drink a beer and talk with other guys about guy things. And watch his kids like a hawk. Being a cop and a guy makes him that much smarter about the fact that not all cops are good cops.

Not all cops are good people.

//

-

//

Lots of cops are _very _good people. Lots of cops watch their kids like hawks at the annual summer barbecue event. The fact that they feel the need to watch their kids at a family cop event pisses them off. Some very good cops are angry about the rot and putrescence festering here and there, in the core of their police departments.

Like everything isn't already fucked up enough without having to watch your own kids at a police department barbecue.

_Like the job wasn't hard enough without bad cops_, they say.

There's a good chance that the good guys have been watching all those kids like a hawk for longer than people might think.

There's a good chance the good guys remember certain things.

_("Gossip," _Kathy said later in bed, not teasing but trying to soothe his frown_. "They're both still cops." _When he didn't respond, she knew he was worried. She knew he believed that what he'd heard was true. She whispered, _"Elliot, what are you going to do?"_

Do about what? That was the problem.

Too much time had passed and he still didn't have an answer.)

//

-

//

Until Fin mentioned that his old friend Bobby Goren had called him up out of the blue, asking questions about 'credible third party witness testimony in historic childhood sex abuse cases,' They were going to meet for a beer.

So, now it was time. Somehow he just knew.


	30. Chapter 30

It was just after Bobby's birthday so she was thinking about birth days. Like everyone else with access to television, she watched the water breach the levees. Watched the city flood. Saw the desperate people on rooftops, floating in children's inflatable rafts, wading waist or chest deep through the toxic lake that had become their neighbourhoods.

She wasn't asking how such a thing could have happened. Eames knows that this can happen. While everyone is looking _over there_, at that serious, important, vital threat over there, this sort of thing can happen right under our noses.

She watched, recalling vividly the day and the night they spent there, not too long after her nephew's birth.

/

/

Remembered the city that felt like the fragrant, close embrace of a dear friend, the landscape redefining _splendid green. _How she'd been amazed by every sense and sensation. The weathered things - sagging porches, fences, sagging trees and buildings and people. Contrasted perfectly with the finery, the tidy, bright, twirly and filigreed things. She thought about how she'd been rendered speechless by Spanish moss and hot salt-sea breezes, street jazz, languid movements, by _'gentility' _and horse carriages, and by the raw, uncomplicated fecundity of the place.

She watched and saw how the levees had broken. The water poured into the city.

Yes, it started before. Had been happening for awhile. And she thought that it might have been because everything was so incredibly _different_ than New York. That's why it just kept happening there. Over and over.

He surprised her. Maybe the 'southern' thing just seeping into him like the heat, but he surprised her when took her elbow as they were being led into the lawyer's office. Then again, when he rested just the tips of his fingers on the lowest part of her back as they left. She needed a 'ladies room'. Splashed a little cold water on her face, an ineffectual effort to banish the pink that had spread so swiftly up her chest and neck, staining her cheeks. Stared hard at herself in the mirror, thinking _What. Is. Wrong. With. You?_ Thinking, _Fucking hormones. Fucking heat. _

But it wasn't until he leaned over her with that grin to offer another stack of paper napkins. The sauce dripping from the bottom of the po'boy bun into a sticky puddle in her hand and him smiling, chewing the crispy crawdads. That was when it became something she knew. A fully-formed thought in the middle of her forehead.

_Shouldn't have let things go this far. _

She shouldn't have let him rub her feet. Or hold her hand. And she shouldn't have let him stay.

/

/

/

/

The day she told Captain Deakins, he joked that Goren probably already knew more about pregnancy than half the obstetricians in New York State. That might have been exaggeration, but it might not.

His insatiable curiosity collided with his core of concern for her well-being when she told him. Literally collided. Stopped him in his tracks for one entire moment. Then, he was relentless.

Maybe the product of this venture was going to belong to someone else, but this part of the journey was theirs alone. He made the most of it.

He brought this up in their SUV on the way to interview a witness. _(And once he gets going … )_

" … you know, the baby's first food. Well, I was reading that it's rich in immunoglobulin, which is vital to the immune system development of a newborn. They have uh, a small, immature digestive system. But the colostrum is uh, it's absorbed through the intestinal epithelium, travels through the blood," he illustrated travel with a fluid hand motion, "and is secreted onto other 'Type 1' mucosal surfaces. The uh, _mucosal surfaces_ are the major components of the adaptive immune system." His animated gestures to emphasize 'adaptive' made her smile. He gave her his most solemn gaze, but his eyes were twinkling. "But it's been found to have uh, the major components of the innate immune system, too," and he counted them off on his fingers, "actoferrin, lysozyme, lactoperoxidase complement, plus polypeptides. And there are a number of cytokines - those are small messenger peptides that control the uh, _functioning_ of the immune system - including interleukins, tumor necrosis factor, some others. And uh, colostrum also contains a number of growth factors - there's insulin-like growth factors and transforming growth factors, and …"

He went on, quoted a half dozen articles he'd already read, and she let him.

And agreed, it was what was best for the baby.

Then,

" … and now, some babies have been really sick from this kind of bacteria they picked up in the hospital, from equipment - like uh, _c-difficile _…," Bobby had mentioned one day.

(He was a font of knowledge and wisdom.)

There was an _okay_ way to do this, and there was a _best _way to do it - to deliver this final gift as his mother.

And since the young woman bringing him in was simply one of the night shift nursery attendants, she could be forgiven for her assumption.

"Oh, you must be Mr. Eames!"

So he got to stay.

(This was not something she let herself think about. Not very much, anyway.)

And ever after, when she felt the heat of his skin near her skin, when he leaned over her shoulder to read her screen, each and every time he got close, it started. Her breasts would tingle and her uterus would clench so gently, and she'd be lost, so lost.

/

/

/

/

Late that night, they were leaning over the railing of the veranda that ran the entire length of the hotel, and taking in the symphony of the senses that was New Orleans at night - from somewhere to the left, Dixieland jazz, from somewhere to the right, a Zydeco band. And there was the ever-present humid spicy-sweet smell, the passers-by in the street below. They were just talking about nothing. Just leaning on the rail. She had made a joking reference to this place being 'the big easy' and had glanced over and up at him. He was gazing at her, a half smile there on his lips. The longing she had been doing her best to be cool about, not permitting herself to notice _pouring _out of him, pouring out of both of them.

Is she brave? Is she foolish? She didn't look away. She didn't flinch. Even while she felt the tell-tale tingling and spreading warmth, even while she thought,

_Definitely should not have_.

She was still glad she did.

/

/

For days, they kept the tvs on, all to witness to the devastation.

When she could, she leaned against the edge of the desk and watched along with everyone else.

And as always, even when she couldn't see him her body told her he was there. She said _Thanks for the coffee _without turning her head and _Thanks for the muffin. _

He nodded, settled beside her to watch, close enough that she could feel the heat of his skin.


	31. Chapter 31

He found her in Youngstown, Ohio. Or she just stopped hiding there.

She was so agitated, had been for days.

Maybe it was something about this case. Even in their line of work, Tim Rainey's sudden lust for rare meat was particularly disturbing.

And who knows why everything happens all at once? It seems to do that from time to time, though, doesn't it? A case involving - even peripherally - Nicole Wallace, her nephew's second birthday. Coming in off the case for the day to give her testimony in Judge Garrett's trial, only to be blindsided by _that letter. _And the fucking holidays. And the fucking Slaughter case, which had been bad enough before the fucking shooting.

It wasn't that it showed in her work. But maybe in the aftermath of taking Chance Slaughter's life, she was still questioning some things about her own. And she was grateful in her way for the letter coming out, was reminded that, sooner later, everything comes out.

He was being incredibly good about it. Worse than good. The coffee was extra delicious, the pastries more fresh and flaky and buttery and perfect. If anything, he had become more substantial, as if he had been fed by the truth.

Still, she felt like she needed to be more careful. She was definitely being more careful with him.

She ran a lot, miles every day. She found the time.

The late winter storm continued to affect air traffic. Flying to Ohio had been easy. Flying back was not going to be easy. She was agitated, suggested they rent a car and drive back. He hid his surprise. Just pointed out that the reason they were stranded there in the first place made such a move a bad idea, and he didn't feel like spending the night on the highway in a storm.

They were going to be spending the night in a small, mostly-depressed American city in a cut-rate hotel, many thanks to the NYPD. It was a cut-rate hotel with a gym - well, more of a _workout room_. Eames didn't waste time changing, going out to give the equipment a try.

It's where he thought he'd find her when he finally put away the notes and pictures in his binder. But she wasn't there.

Bemused, wondering if he'd find her back in her room, or … and was considering calling her cell, when he got a sense that she was on the other side of the poorly decorated lobby of the cut-rate hotel, in the bar - well, it was more of a _lounge_. And she was. With some guy she'd met in the workout room. Drinking vodka straight up in her grey sweat pants and black tank top and pony tail. Laughing.

When he ambled up, he could see that she had that edge she sometimes wore. Glittering eyes and breathtaking sarcasm, so cool. She was charming in a weirdly-terrifying way when she was like this. The way she'd smile - so nice, so sincere - usually in an interrogation room, just before she'd shift gears and slam down the, "_No, see _…"

She was still smiling at something her companion had said, and didn't especially acknowledge Bobby's arrival.

"My partner, Detective Goren," she just explained him to the stranger from the gym without gesturing or even turning her head, then said for Bobby's benefit,

"This is Bob. He sells leather."

Eames was sitting on a bar stool, Bob was on another. He rose to greet Bobby. They shook hands briefly. Then Bobby took up station just behind Eames, standing and leaning against the dark wood bar.

Bob, it turned out, was in town for the tradeshow. And Bob explained - ostensibly to them both while still smiling only at her - that he'd been telling the _lady detective _about the world of leather. About the odd sorts of people you meet working trade shows.

Yes, there were lots of mundane reasons for buying leather. Home furnishing, clothing, fashion accessories. Lots of _belt and purse _types. He sold leather in New York a couple of times a year, (and he smiled more widely for a moment), the big fashion houses bought a lot.

Bobby ordered a scotch, neat.

Bob kept talking.

But it was the fringe groups that kept things interesting. The cowboy types - the _boot and saddle makers _he called them with a little roll of his eyes, and Eames laughed her brittle laugh. They were always looking for a good supply of cowhide. Good people, the westerners. Salt of the earth, give you the shirt off their backs types. Not altogether different from the bikers, he confided. The bikers just liked another kind of horsepower. And another colour, he laughed, black instead of tan. Mostly family people - honest hard-working. Oh sure, sometimes the hardcore-types, the '_bike club members, you know_,' came around, but not that much. And a couple of times a year, he'd see the freaky people, (and he touched her arm casually to emphasize significance), the _tattooed, pierced, leather, bondage and fetish-type crowd_. She saw his eyes flick to her ears, to the rows of small hoops there, his smile widen a tad. Bobby saw, too. _And don't get me wrong_, he held up his hands in mocking acquiescence, _as long as it's legal_! He laughed and she laughed and agreed that obviously, it had to be _legal_. Bob swirled the dregs of his beer in his heavy glass mug.

First she then Bobby tipped up their stubby glasses and drained them, put them down on the bar. Two low clunks in unison.

Bob kept talking.

And boy had he seen some _freaky stuff _(he told _them_ but really only her). Last year in Pittsburgh there had been some people shopping for their _exclusive private clientele_ - that's what they called it, and you wouldn't have known it to look at them, they seemed _so 'middle class normal'_, but then they started talking, and it turned out they were some of the 'whips and chains' types, had a mail-order business selling custom-made kinky stuff. Advertised in the back of a couple of dirty magazines. Had a website. It was a full time job.

Bobby waved his fingers at the bartender. Their drinks were refreshed.

These folks made custom starter kits for other folks to use at home. For the shy sort, the ones who don't want to go into a store, he guessed. But a starter kit - that's like a dog collar and wrist cuffs. They had a catalogue, and had shown him the 'his and hers' collection in candy pink and baby blue - no kidding! All coordinated! Or traditional - black with the shiny studs and buckles and so forth. Oh, and a leash and some variety of _flogger_ - that's what they called they paddle things they used for spanking - 'a flogger'.

He laughed and she laughed and Bobby sipped his scotch.

They said that sort of thing was their bread-and-butter. And Bob said he thought that was a funny thing to call a mail-order bondage gear business - 'bread and butter'. Nice people, though, he continued. Had a couple of kids, too, and they said it let them live the way want. Then in a burst of tolerant, liberal, earnestness, he said _And I figure hey - people want what they want_. Eames laughed her breaking glass laugh and said there was no doubt about it _- people want what they want. _Sure, he nodded. Public is one story, but in private, that's a whole other ballgame. And he took a little bigger risk.

"But you must see that kind of thing all the time in your line of work." He served up a smile and paired it with a lean in on his elbow.

Eames downed her vodka. Put her glass back on the bar with possibly too much force.

"We see that kind of thing all the time, all right," she said. Slid off her bar stool, excused herself, was gone for just a few minutes.

When she got back, Bob was gone.

//

//

Back in his cut-rate hotel room, she confronted him.

"I don't need for anyone to keep an eye on me," she said. Arms akimbo. "I'm not helpless."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Uh," he surveyed the ceiling for a measured moment. "It means I know you're not helpless."

"I don't need anyone to come to my rescue."

"Is that what I was doing?"

"Is it?"

"You … you're upset. I don't understand why."

"Because I'm fed up with it. A woman who isn't available is being 'rocky mountain hard'. I have a drink with a guy and it means I'm in need of rescuing by a scowling behemoth."

"Eames, …" he began, then protested defensively, "and I wasn't scowling."

Her hands were on her hips. Eyes flashing.

"You think that I think that?" He was frowning.

Faced each other. Held each other's gaze.

"No," she crossed her arms across her chest, looked at the floor.

"You know," he stepped closer, "if you _actually_ want to be uh, 'not helpless' with Bob, please, don't let me stop you."

"I should … _what did you say_?"

"I think you heard me."

"What exactly is that supposed to mean? Like it's your business?"

"Well, yes. If you're asking, it's my business. Is that the point of this?"

"No."

"What, then?"

"I … " She stopped. Looked at him, eyes slightly rounded, bottom lip soft and shiny. "Maybe I don't know what the point of this is," she said. Now, tired and feeling queasy from three vodkas straight up with a dose of bitterness, all on an otherwise empty stomach. She ran her hand across her face, paused to rub her forehead. "I'm so tired of it. Maybe I just don't want to think about it anymore. Just not think about any of it for awhile."

And he waited to see if she had anything else to say, tipped his head so slightly, told her so softly,

"Okay … . You know, I can help you with that." Then smiled. Her eyelids slid towards closed so slightly, and then he could smell her right through her sweat pants, across the space between them.

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, that's right."

She smirked, looked away, was about to make a snarky comment about going to find Bob to ask him if they could borrow his sample case for awhile, but he caught her hands and pulled her closer. She was there, just there. Eames the way Eames is.

"Let me take care of you."

She nodded, stepped up and leaned into him. Leaned into his chest, pressed her face into him, and his arms curled around her.

"Touch me."

So they stripped each other quickly and fell onto the bed, into each other with a sigh.

"Like normal people," she whispered, kissing him but also thinking about normal, normal people, normality … thinking about how Bob was right, how normal everyone seems until you get to know them. The social mask, indeed. Thinking about the pretense of normal and the veneer of normal and the value of normal, and what made something 'normal', anyway? Slipping_, awayawayaway, _under his gentle hands and gentle fingers (and lips), not anchored, body disconnecting … until she realized he was staring at her, not moving, staring into her, searching her face and reaching into her eyes.

He said, low and urgent,

"Hey, where'd you go?"

They both stopped everything but their searching eyes. The pulse in her throat, the dilation of her pupils told a story. He rested a hand against her chest and felt her heart racing, moved the hand to her face, then laced fingers into her hair.

"Alex," he whispered, "where did you go? Stay here with me."

She tried to make a joke. Wiggled so her sex rubbed against him, wrapped her legs around him. "You don't know where I am?"

But no.

"No. We're not doing this. Not like this. You are too …"

"Too_ what?"_

Eyes locked - his searching, hers skipping over, past, past, this _thing _that was happening, hers meeting his for fleeting moments before skipping past, and over, over _this thing_.

That, unlike Pennsylvania, there was nothing to keep her here, (no belts or ties, or even that burning, shaking desire). No excuse. No reason. That she was panicking and numbing like Seattle, and that she thought she was just going to fuck him anyway.

"Say my name."

"What?"

"Say my name, Alex."

So close to him, she watched him watch her, all wary-instinct, white-edged nostrils flaring with each shallow intake of breath. _But present._ Now, present. He felt her shudder, nodded at her, whispered again,

"Say it,"

"_Bobby."_

"Who am I?"

"Bobby," she told him again. "Bobby." Understanding again, sighing, relaxing, opening, _"Bobby."_

He lowered his head, dipped his face down and kissed her neck, kissed lower, to the space where her shoulder met her neck.

"Do you want me?"

"I want you. Bobby, I want you."

"Again," she could hear his smile, his mouth and nose almost touching her skin, lips almost against her ear. He moved his hips, she gasped slowly.

"_Bobby."_ Sighed_, _now pushing her hips up into him pulling him in with her hands, rubbing every bit of herself against him. _"You're Bobby."_

"Damn right," gruff voice, face buried in her hair. Buried in her.

It was just them together. Hands, bodies. Lips. Like this was something they did all the time, even though they'd never exactly done _this _before. Not with nothing holding her there. Meeting him in the middle because there was nothing in the world better than that.

Nothing better than _(this?) _not knowing what he was going to do next or _(or this?) _not really caring because she wasn't thinking _(no? want this?) _and because she trusted him with her life. _(yeah, this. this.)_

It felt like truth.

"_God, woman," _he said like he had just discovered something entirely unexpected and very, very good, and she swore a blue streak, sang a filthy hymn in praise of this moment. He was laughing when he told her. _"I adore your dirty mouth. I adore you_." She was just then deeply distracted his sudden adjustment in rhythm, in tension, but she heard him.

Around midnight, they dug through the phonebook and found a place still open. Ate bread, oily black olives, cucumber chunks, herbed pilaf. Ate everything with plastic forks out of styrofoam containers sitting in the middle of the rumpled bed. She had slipped into his discarded shirt, and his eyes glowed with strange light when he saw her.

_Neither of them could know. Not about the poisons about to run into their lives. The mutated cells now quietly dividing and dividing, proliferating inside the hospitable host that was a heavily-medicated Frances Goren. Or about the scheme to ruin James Deakins now secretly oozing, spreading from mouth to ear within the Department. How could they know about the broken yellow-haired girl from his past who, at that moment, was staring sightlessly out a window at a slice of the New York City skyline and chewing the edge of her thumbnail, wallowing in unlit, festering places within her own heart, sinking deeper into madness?_

Not knowing, Eames let herself consider, (_but just idly_), that loving someone she couldn't touch wasn't anything new.

But this?

No matter what else was true, she always felt _like this _with him.

_(Hope is for suckers, Detective.)_

And there was a kind-of fluttering in her chest, a baby bird testing its wings there. And Eames was filled with it, and she just knew she would never be the same.

_I want this._

Next time. She'd tell him about the bad blood, about everything, next time.

But now she was in the middle of their bed with a container of _orzo con pignoli _and deliciously sore thighs, looking up to find him looking at her like that. Looking up to find him moving her way in slow, predatory stealth mode, taking the dish from her and setting it aside, and then reaching for the first little button on the shirt.

She was going to be disciplined.

Wasn't going to think about anything else but _this. _


	32. Chapter 32

**Could be disturbing. Let me know.**

* * *

Think about Bobby? While she was hanging there? No, of course she didn't think about him. That's a silly notion. She wasn't thinking about anything, really. "Thinking" is the wrong way to look at it, anyway. It isn't like that. She was doing something else, something to do with _instincts _and _survival_. Something akin to her people-watching exercises on planes and in restaurants, but much more serious. And it is true - she's a highly trained, professional law enforcement officer, a 'Detective, First Class' and the best Major Case has to offer. But even so, there's only so much pain and terror a body can take before some things get switched off.

It's just that Eames has been there before. Naturally, not _exactly_ there, but … . Let's just say she understands being helpless, and she knows how to do what she needs to do in order to survive.

She wasn't thinking about Bobby. She was waiting, listening. Learning everything she could about her situation and her surroundings. She was staying ready for that one opportunity - a shot at freedom. A chance to live.

It's the same thing she's been doing since she was seven years old.

Eames wasn't thinking about Bobby, so she never connected what happened to her to anything about Bobby, or their private relationship.

Or the things he has done to her.

Bobby wasn't so lucky though, was he? Between the sudden, unexpected, incredibly fucked-up fact that the new boss knew her supposedly-confidential home address off the top of his head, and all the blood, _(the drag marks in the blood on the floor and the blood on the wall. So much blood), _he was unable to firmly grasp a single thought.

Then Declan telling him to accept that she was already dead and how was he supposed to do that?

On an already blistering-hot morning.

They walked, the sidewalk tipped dangerously. Not the sidewalk. Him.

He'd seen the two recent victims. He'd seen the Sebastian photographs. Read the file, Declan's notes. So he knew what was happening to her. And died a little bit himself. And died a little bit again. And then again.

Declan was talking but he wasn't making any sense and all he could think about was her pain threshold. About how much she could take.

Which was a lot, he knew. _A lot. _

And he died a little bit again.

And it wasn't just because of Pennsylvania, though that on its own could have been enough to bring him to his knees. There was also the more recent night in Hoboken. A surprise, an offering, a gift. A confirmation and a renewal. A celebration.

The view across the river to Manhattan was amazing. The sex was amazing. No hesitation. Just them, there. One desire, taking risks. Pushing things harder. And they'd got a little ... crazy, maybe. Gone pretty far.

She had been so incredibly, insanely beautiful, had smiled blissfully at him through bangs in her eyes and stuck to her face, her hair and all of her, shiny-wet, completely drenched with sweat_. _She was so calm, euphoric, relaxed, and promised him it was okay, that he hadn't hurt her. Had laughed her throaty laugh, and walking with Declan he remembered it and died a little.

He said to himself, Stop.

Said, This is a case. Work the case.

_(This is a case.)_

Took some breaths, but they wouldn't go down deeper than his sternum. He was both hot and cold. Morning summer light left everything harsh. Hot and cold at the same time, and Declan wasn't making any sense at all.

It was all he could think about. What was happening to her. What he'd done to her.

And he died.

Then felt overcome by remorse for his selfishness and disloyalty for his failure to stay focused on _she's okay I can find her she's okay I can in time_ and he wanted to think about the way her eyes … . _Work the case_. He wanted to think about … . _Alex_. He wanted to think about her eyes in the sun, her frowning, or negotiating traffic. Smirking, saying "No, see … ", asking him if he… . Anything.

But he kept thinking about how tightly the killer had wound the duct tape around Heidi Conington's wrists and he knew that she didn't like having things around her wrists. Over her mouth. She didn't like blindfolds or … _No_.

Now there was that ghastly sense of falling forward into nothingness forever and a roaring, like an arriving tsunami. It was harder and harder to hear what Declan was saying. Harder to focus.

All he could see was bloody duct tape and think _she doesn't like that_. No, it's not like that. It's not the binding, it's the tension. It's the contradiction. Paradox. Surrender. It's not … _that isn't _what she wants … . Cutting. Cuts. Made with sharpened pinking shears. All he could think about was making marks on her flesh, and died.

But he wanted to think about her hair, the way her hair looked, the way it moved around when she drove with the window open … .

Then, sirens and ... and Declan had her cell phone in his.

_Please_. This was his single thought as the wave crested, his hands came up on their own to hold his head. _Please. _

Honestly? It's a wonder he didn't have a heart attack and die right there in the street.

/

She was just really glad to see him when he came in (curtain rod notwithstanding). It had been hard, yes. But so had birthing her nephew. Becoming a cop. Lots of things. She just did what needed to be done, because that's what she does. And she knew he'd been in hell, could see it, knew why. In her drugged and confused state, she tried to tell him something, (because it was something she thought he should know), something pretty important. Something only he'd understand.

And he was listening, he heard her. He did.

/

He was holding her hand across the table, running his thumb over the puckered white edges of the scar. She had two of them - one circling each wrist, varying in width and size. He kept his attention on the scar under his thumb. Kept tracing its edge. Remembered.

"I'm sorry. For, for … ." His voice was thick.

She made no move in response, no sound. Forced him with her stillness and silence to look up at her, meet her eyes. She forced him to look at her. He looked. Then they came to an understanding about all of that, and he stopped apologizing.


	33. Chapter 33

He sees how close it came. Sees that, if it wasn't for her, he'd be dead. And vice versa.

Beside her in this bed, he is wide awake. Deprived of sight, he turns his restless thoughts inward. He does that anyway. Ponders cases, puzzles. Thinks things through. Now, he listens to her sleep. And comes unraveled with all the stealth and quietude he can muster.

He has gone through her photo albums, and he has been told. He is getting the picture. He sees. And he is incredulous. He is astounded. He comes up against his disbelief, his _this is nuts_, thoughts, his _this is NUTS _thoughts. _He is a child rapist_ thoughts, _He is the Chief of Detectives _thoughts. _This cannot be happening_. This man will use all of his power to keep this secret, he knows. And he adjusts himself next to her, here where they rest in between this rock and that hard place. Finds that he needs to have at least one part of his body touching her body at all times, even if it's just the tip of his pinky finger. He recognizes that she needs this, too. Without a doubt, she will grow restless in sleep if he leaves this bed. She will wake and come looking for him. He stays and listens. He endures waves of memories.

He sees them all now. All the things he missed. Every little thing. Has to pull out each and every one, examine it for a clue, a way out. Each one a twist of the knife. Because he sees in the dark how in spite of himself he has assumed that it is always all about him. Let himself pretend that she's fine because above all else it's what she wants everyone to think, and because it's easier. It happens. All the time, it's what happens. Waves of memories rolling over him, and he feels he can't struggle or fight against it. That it isn't time for that. This isn't about him, was never about him. He remembers the game, 'tit for tat'. Her face, her words.

/

"_That's a weird question, Bobby." _

_Pink cheeked, pretty, glittering eyes, hot tequila-fume breath burst of laughter. _

"_The first time I handled a weapon I was eleven. Snuck my Dad's 'Detective's Special' out of a drawer in his bedroom." _

"_Loaded?"_

"_I loaded it."_

"_Oh my God, you're joking! Did you get caught?"_

"_Yes, I got caught. Got an old-fashioned spanking, was grounded for a year."_

"_Holy shit, Eames. That's, that's like a parent's worst nightmares, isn't it? Kids playing with loaded handguns?"_

"_I wasn't playing with it." _

_The openly-challenging stare, the toss of her bangs, the lighthearted laugh, then,_

"_You?"_

/

Sees now in the dark that he elected to never ask the next most obvious question. Has failed her. The most curious person she's ever known, and he failed to ask the next most obvious question. For years, he has failed to ask. She would have asked. She would have said, '_why did you take your father's weapon_?' But not him. In the dark, rolling waves, he is able to see how stupid this all is. Like the energy spent hating Ross, hating the way he hovered around her. His assumptions. His insecurities. But it was never about that, was never about him.

Sees what he's put her through. How, with his 'heroic attempted rescue' of Frank's son, _his nephew_, he has abandoned her, left her vulnerable, impotent. Left her there alone. All the time feeling like he was the one who was alone.

In stealth mode, he approaches the edges of some memories:

Very loud noises and a heavy feeling in his chest and throat - something like _hope_? Opening his aching eyes and it was her, there, close enough to touch if he could have moved, saying to someone in her most terrifying voice, "_Do I need to explain what 'now' means, too?_"

Her face like she'd just taken a kick to the gut because of what she was thinking _about him _while the moment stretched and stretched, tight as her finger on the trigger of her weapon, tight as his grip on his own. All _(he could see - vulnerable, impotent) _she was thinking, then her face closing down, shutting down, then _(abandoned her - he could see)_ not thinking about him.

He skirts these memories. He can't go all the way there yet. Not yet.

And when he is able to relax into the arms of Morpheus, of course it's Nicole who haunts his dreams.

"_Oh, Bobby," she's pale pink and yellow with eyes like holes pulling him in so fast and deep he's drowning, "I tried to warn you, but you just never listen, do you?" She's rounded, soft and sharp, hard, moist, sucking, and he feels sick, urgent lust. "Bad little girls need to know their place. It isn't your fault …"_

_/_

"No!"

He jerks awake.

_She _worries about _him_. Asks him in the darkness,

"Are you okay?" She rolls toward him and waves roll over him. "Don't," she whispers, she knows. "It's not your fault. Don't."

"I'm sorry," he whispers back. "Sorry I'm keeping you awake."

"You aren't."

She seeks him in the dark, reaches for him, takes him in her hands, and then in her mouth. She is alive. She is real, and good. He is filled with this - the knowing that he is here _with her_. Then he moves. Then he stills her hands with his hands, fills her lungs with his breath, and all of her with him. Shows her. She accepts everything he brings her. Well beyond the point of no return, she has become immersed in kinesthetic reeducation. She _wants _everything_, wants him. _Is unabashed in her hunger, her need to only know how he feels inside her, to only know his hands, his mouth, his taste, his smell, him. She is graphic, blunt about her desire. And he is grateful. This magic he can still wield. He can hold her safely and touch her like this and lead her to a place where she will cry out. Can take her even further, can hold her still while she arches her back and she pleads for him, begs him, disassembles, comes undone. Is remade anew. He knows how to do this, he remembers. He can whisper into body, her neck and hair, tell her that she is perfect and beautiful and so good, can tell her again and again that he loves her, that he will die for her. He can do this until she is sure it's the truth.

She sleeps again.

He waits. Thinks and searches for a way out. Some way out. He is not prepared to have arrived in this moment and not get what he wants. There has to be a way, he thinks. He just isn't seeing it. Like a bird into a window, he crashes into the same thought over and over, always newly surprised to find it there. A thought about the way things really are. And the thought is Jimmy Deakins.

He prays.

Deprived of sight and sleep, he touches his big toe to her calf, rests his thumb against a vertebrae, remembers words - what she said, what he said. All these words. He remembers the words, and endures waves.

_/_

"_I didn't take this job to get noticed."_

_-  
_

"_Me? I was so well adjusted they elected me prom queen."_

_-  
_

"_Sooner or later everyone gets their day in court."_

_-  
_

"_C'mon Bobby, I'm your partner."_

"_So then you're gonna to have to trust me, Eames."_

_-  
_

"_All your wounds are self-inflicted."_

_/_

He remembers.

"_Your cousin is very a bad boy."_


	34. Chapter 34

**A long-winded and boring A/N**

**Travel-wise: **Planes, trains and SUV's. I have a _'source'_, an orange and floofy source, who maybe lives over yonder. So, I inquired about this kind-of thing. While they're about the same distance on land from NYC, the highway to the Portsmouth area (New Hampshire-Maine border) is bigger, better, faster than the road to Ohio (because it connects NYC to Boston.) Plus, this occurs during the light time of year, rather than in the midst of sudden, intense late winter snowstorms. I decided that road travel and a motel are in order.

**LOCI canon-wise**, we're in mid-season seven, Bobby's first _major case _back after his suspension. (aka 'Betrayed')

**'Blues'-wise**, it's been two days since Eames spilled the beans.

* * *

It's the same thing she's been doing since she was seven years old, but suddenly the waiting was over.

She didn't wonder, or doubt. At no time did she think, 'Is this it?' she just knew. She knew it when she first met him, she knew. And here it was. Her turn. Her shot at freedom.

She sighed and rubbed a hand across her face. And just didn't even know where to begin.

They had talked about the case all the way up the coast. So easy. Because they are professionals and before everything else, they do the job. And this case was shaping up to be tricky, much trickier than it first appeared, and that gave them a lot to do. Gave them something meaty to sink into.

Everyone knows that they have a groove - their 'working a case' groove. It's is the envy of ninety per cent of the detectives in the NYPD. They toss out possibilities, fill in what they know, contemplate in silence, add potential details, spin some hypotheticals, then some motives. Then pick everything apart again. Start over. They went through a half dozen scenarios before they pulled over for fuel and coffee just outside Boston.

And he stopped her before she got out of the vehicle with his hand on her arm. Made sure he had her full attention with the pointed significance and more than a little bit of an edge there in his eyes, a bit of his neighbourhood there in his voice.

"We're talkin'," he stated. "Before we go back, Alex."

She nodded.

"After. Avery's parents first."

/

It was a long, complicated story. She shared a big chunk of it in the diner that morning after her jog. A big chunk. Names, dates and times. They'd made headway.

But back at her house he asked to see photo albums. He wanted to see pictures.

Which (in spite of knowing him as well as she does) she hadn't been expecting at all.

"Is it okay?" He was suddenly nervous and unsure. So was she.

She kept them - all of them - in a large plastic storage tub underneath her bed. All her treasures, her memories. Graduation photos, ribbons, prizes. Everything except the things from him, the ones she kept with the plant. There was her life in souvenirs, fitted neatly into a white plastic bin she got on sale at a big box store. She thought about the life hidden in there _only _when she moved to a new place. So, she'd steeled herself with a cleansing breath. Then popped the lid off the tub. Her wedding portrait was there on top. Her, Joe. Glasses raised.

Her heart lurched, and ached, like it was being squeezed and squeezed and Bobby stared down into the tub, at the picture in its frame. Then took it out, and looked and looked.

"You were a married woman," he said very quietly. Then reached over to her nightstand, and with tremendous care, he set the frame up on top, just under her reading lamp.

And for the second time that day, Alex wept.

There hadn't been time to talk since, what with the case. They're not as young as they used to be. They keep odd hours. They need to sleep sometime.

Eventually he was going to know all of it.

She would tell him the rest. She just didn't know where to begin.

/

And it was already dark when they got there, the family in full-blown premature celebration. She watched them and knew they already knew it was a lie. Avery's young brother Caleb told them about receiving the text. Her mother was nearly frantic with joy and drifted away, and Eames knew that she already knew it was a lie. _Mothers know when it's a lie _- a stray collection of words, a feeling and an accusation. She was surprised and irritated by the thought. Bobby asked the boy a question about his sister's spelling. And it turned out he knew it was a lie, too. With sudden courage, he asked Bobby outright. In spite of her best effort to be an objective cop, Eames thought loud and clear, _everyone knows when it's a lie_.

Rather than give the unnecessary answer, Bobby took Caleb's phone. And they gave thanks to the family for their time, and returned to the vehicle.

"Stay here?" said Bobby.

She lifted both brows a hitch - a question.

"We can ask around, maybe somebody here knows something?"

Eames called Ross and gave him the details. Gave Bobby a firm look, said,

"No, we're calling it a night. I'll log on from here with the … no, it's a long drive. In the morning. Yes, Captain."

Snapped her phone shut, turned off the ringer. Then turned in the car seat to face Bobby.

She sighed and rubbed a hand across her face. And just didn't even know where to begin.

//

Small towns are the same everywhere, too. They're like families, or other kinds of groups. And some people only ever have nice things to say about each other. But most people are prepared to dish a little on their neighbours, especially their young and pretty and _too high-and-mighty for the likes of us_ neighbours. Especially to a pair of big-city cops. For a Tuesday night in a cozy coastal town in Maine, this was some high-octane excitement.

But, aside from some common envy and spite, and a few honest good wishes, they learned little about how the citizens of Avery's home town felt about her. She hadn't been around very much for a long time.

They checked into a small seaside motel. She didn't bother getting them two rooms. She didn't feel like maintaining the farce right now. She just didn't feel like it.

What she felt like was telling him,

"_Let me take care of you tonight." _

She felt like giving him a demonstration of her unchained devotion. _That's_ what she felt like.

And fish and chips. Or maybe a lobster roll, with a side of coleslaw and some cold beer.

The tide was out. They took a slow walk along the waterfront to the fish and chip place. A long slow walk back. They held hands. Didn't talk much. Down closer to the tideline, some young people were having a beach fire, their forms all orange-lit in the glow of the flames, wind-blown, happy. Blue-grey, the smoke in the firelight swirled up into the night. Tinny guitar and out-of-tune singing were pushed across the beach on a gust of wind - a familiar pop tune. _(I want to get away, I want to fly away … yeah, yeah, yeah … ) _They were both thinking about it. It would be so easy. Just go.

But they're still Goren and Eames.

They walked and looked across the dark cove at the people in the firelight, looked in at their lives for a moment as they passed by.

"We think of the light spectrum all wrong," he said. "We've got it backwards."

And they walked for awhile before she said quizzically, "_What_?"

"Colours, light - it's the other way around. Red light is colder. Blue is hot."

"And white is really hot," she said.

/

And she really was as happy as she'd ever been in the little motel room, now wearing his stripy blue and black shirt. Just being with him was enough. Being enveloped in his scent. She was leaning against him and drinking a beer. Being flippant, crass, relaxed. Pretending to be relaxed. Knowing he was waiting.

"Remember when I told you about my dad's sister?" In the end, it's where she began. And he nodded. "I wasn't entirely honest about that …"

(This is what that whole 'some names and details have been changed to protect the innocent' thing is all about. Just enough to prevent any real identification. To protect the innocent. Sometimes to protect other things. And Eames is a good liar. But then, as far as this goes? Her life depends on it. And now, so does his.)

So she told him as much as she knew about the bad blood.

And he was at least as upset as she'd ever seen him.

"It's all a lie," he said. "How can we keep doing the job when it's all a lie? He's the Chief. He's our 'Commander', for cryin' out loud! Eames!"

"Don't you think I know that?" She was a little bit loud in return. "And it's not 'all a lie'! I'm not a lie. You're not a lie. The Captain wasn't a lie, and the people we help aren't a lie. Maggie Coulter isn't a lie."

As soon as it was out of her mouth she wished she could take it back. She wanted to have control, but couldn't stop herself from looking down at the floor. And when she got her eyes back to his face, she saw the stunned expression.

"Stop it," she said. "It's not like I've been sitting here waiting for you to rescue me."

His stunned expression was fixed in place.

"It's exactly like that," he said at last, so quietly. And his stunned expression was becoming something more like _horror-stricken_, so she tried to head him off.

"Don't, Bobby," but it was too late.

"When? When was the last time, Alex?" Oh, how all colour had drained from her face, and the smell of her fear. "Alex …?"

She was scrunching up, face folding up and quickly reddening now.

"Don't ask me that."

//

"What now?"

"What do you think I'm doing up there, Bobby? A 'Major Case Detective'? Just killing time? What else do you think I have going on?"

He ducked his head.

"I know this now - there's no 'normal life' waiting for me. You said you want this, and God Bobby," she looked deeply at him, luminous eyes filled with longing and despair, "I want it too. _So much. _But, … you didn't know what you were saying. So now you know. Welcome to 'this'."

"Eames," he started, but she stopped him with a Medusa glare.

"I could have blown your head off. You'd be dead …" and she faltered, and this time he whispered her name but she held up her hand. "There isn't anything else. Just this. Sooner or later, he's going to make a mistake he can't back away from. And I'm going to be watching. I'm going to be there." She stared out the window into the darkness, into an invisible landscape, another bitter reverie. Then gathered herself, told him, "Until then, I'm still a cop. I intend to keep doing my job."

* * *

(familiar pop lyric by Lenny Kravitz. i'm certain he reserves his rights, too.)


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N**,** part one:** Oh hi. Sorry 'bout that. A bit longer chapter this time, to make up for the absence. Thanks to everyone who said 'Hi!' while i was away, and thanks to the beta people (Thank You, Beta People.)

This is utter fiction (especially everything about real agencies like the CDC and NYPD, and everything about DNA evidence) though there really is a Women's Health Clinic in White Plains.

I snarl at the fanfiction format daemons. (snarl!)

* * *

"What's this 'Greek Tragedy' business, Lennie?" the trusted companion asked him.

He put his fork down at the edge of his plate and touched his napkin to his mouth. Then he reached for his water glass and drank slowly, all the while his eyes soft on the muted yellow flame in the center of the table. After a long moment, he drew his gaze up to hers and said,

"Maybe … twenty years ago now? There were these two cops … "

/

/

Never. Not once did she feel anger about it. Not when there was no money for milk for breakfast, and not when she went without new shoes for a few months longer than she should. Not even on those nights when her dad didn't come until late (or not at all) and she'd be the one to steer Mom up the stairs, guide her to her bed. Then drift back down herself and hit the kitchen mess. Scrape leftover spaghetti or tuna noodle casserole into the trash and stack the plates in a sink of hot sudsy water. Lug an overflowing hamper to the basement and get a load of socks and underwear going. Clean the dishes quickly, then study while waiting to put everything in the dryer before going to bed herself. Sometimes she'd still be at it when her dad got home and he'd smile his _fatigued to the edge of collapse _smile at her where she sat at the table working through algebra, calculus, trigonometry, and Punnett squares, and transitive verbs.

"Ally-Oop," he'd greet her.

And bend and kiss the top of her head, the story of his day coming off him in the whiff of yeasty beer or whiskey-hot breath, stale perspiration, cigarette smoke and sex. Sometimes he'd lower himself into one of the kitchen chairs with a low sigh and Alex would know that there is a special reward for the one who stays up latest, the one who works the hardest. Her father's good graces would remind her.

Though mostly he'd just ask,

"Mom gone to bed?"

Then head that way himself.

/

"Little pitchers have big ears," her mom would say whenever she and her own sister would sit at their aquamarine Formica and chrome kitchen table to drink hot, sweet Sankas lightened with powdered creamer, roll loose-tobacco cigarettes with their little paper tubes, and Auntie Betty would rest her delicate self on the edge of her chair and droop prettily, twist her handkerchief or the ends of her curls into knots and talk, and talk, and talk about Uncle Donald and …

Mom would look directly at her younger sister and Auntie Betty would look at Alex and frown and press her lips together in a firm line.

"Ally, why don't you go play?"

But this was how Alex came to know something that wasn't for her to know.

/

Sometimes her mom would pull herself up out of her stupor while Alex was tugging a pillow or a blanket into a semblance of comfortable order around her on the bed, would look right at her daughter and her eyes - hazel-gold - would fill with worry, with unshed (_never shed_) tears and she'd reach, touch her hand to Alex's hand.

"You're a bright penny, my daughter," she'd say. "Whatever would I do without you?"

"Ally-girl," she'd whisper, slipping back into forgetfulness. "Alexandra. My daughter. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

/

"_John how could you?" _

When Laurie Manotti demanded to know this of her special, precious, adored husband, Eames looked down at _'Mr. Practice Wife, Mr. Better Than All of You - Saviour of Humanity - Mr. Genius-Boy' _and felt nothing at all. Just wondered idly how many wives across the span of time had uttered those same four words in that exact tone of voice.

/

Perhaps because she could recall her mom being the initiator of every single road-trip 'eye-spy' game they ever played on the long drive to Boston, or because she knew each and every year that it was her mom who had stayed up all night Christmas Eve getting everything perfect for the kids when they all got up - 'the kids' being how she thought of her brothers, her sister. Because she had absolutely no doubt that it had been Mom who had crept into bedrooms and replaced baby teeth with coins, and saw with her own eyes that it was Mom who applied calamine lotion to sunburns and windburns and bug bites. And it was Mom who'd taken the boys to their pre-dawn hockey practices and their afternoon baseball practices and Mom who'd supplied paper valentines and bake sale cookies for all five of her children.

Maybe that was why she was the only one who wasn't humiliated and angry when Mom passed out at her kid brother's seventh grade school play. Or why she never even got angry any of the times Mom passed out with a lit cigarette.

But it might have been because she knew something that wasn't for her to know.

/

/

Eames hated how jumpy she was, but she couldn't stop. Twisting her head at every corner, hummingbird eyes flicking from the rearview to the side mirror to the road ahead. He noticed, but was quiet.

_Had_ been quiet since meeting her at the ferry terminal. And she could tell that he was watching her, that he had noticed, but even so, she couldn't seem to stop it. Couldn't seem to get her ears to stop the ringing that somehow amplified the pounding of blood that had started up the instant she saw him there, waiting for her. _( o god )_ When he should have been somewhere else. _( what … ? )_ Or stop the simultaneous urges to run to him and away from him.

_Well, you look great._

_/_

At the crime scene, the hair on the back of her neck and on her arms kept rising, and she'd whip her head around and find nothing there but air. And try to relax the creased-in spot between her eyes, and try to relax shoulders that were pulling up toward her ears, just before she'd get that _someone's watching _sense and whip around again. Had to force herself _not_ inspect each patrolman. Had to _not_ slide sidelong glances around the room. Had to _try not to try _to catch anybody watching her, or watching him. Gooseflesh would rise, she'd whip around.

Third time it happened, Bobby was standing behind her. Fourth time, Bobby was standing there. Fifth time, she started to relax.

/

A little later on in their unmarked department-issue sport utility vehicle, she had _(staring hard at her hands) _at last found courage enough to ask him,

"Is this supposed to mean something? You coming back early?"

He was a little startling, moving like that from his earlier display of bashful awkwardness to his hallmark restless, edgy intensity, his boldest gaze. And something else.

But the time apart had left her unsure. Not even a phone call. Since she had told him to go (no_, ordered _him to go), she wondered. Truthfully, she feared. Truthfully, she expected him to say to her again,

"Why not ask me to cut off my arm?" Say to her again, "Ask something else, Alex. Anything else. Because I can't do this thing you are asking me to do."

And that would be that.

But he didn't. He nodded - just once.

"I get it. Okay? And you're right," he told her with his eyes holding hers firmly. "About the way I am, and everything else. All of it. You're right."

She turned her face away from him - a quick, jerky motion, one meant to keep him from seeing and knowing her weakness. But the _something else _brought a sound from his throat. In a breath, a cough, a bark.

"_Don't."_

Instinctively obedient, she jerked her face back to him, and saw with some surprise how it was just the same for him, that he needed to see it all, no matter what. He needed to see how this admission would make her feel. Needed to know how his confession and his vulnerability were going to affect her. Needed to be an equal partner in _her _Moment of Truth.

She almost didn't notice him reaching for her and after, she had no idea how, in her skirt and boots, he managed to pull her across but she was in his lap again with her feet in the driver's seat.

And he was saying,

"No, _shhh _… it's okay. It's okay to be right. _It's okay_. I love you."

/

/

Nice tidy endings. Nice happy endings. Aren't they nice? Everybody loves nice happy endings. The kind where the _flawed-but-still-worthy_ hero confronts the villain and is redeemed. Everything comes out right. The damsel is saved. Justice is served. All the little loose ends are tied up and maybe there's a _Wonderful Surprise _- a ring, a promise, a child. Fade to black.

Wouldn't that be nice?

How about the 'gritty realism' approach - it seems fairly popular still. Those ones where 'The Truth' is revealed, where the perfect, utterly-blameless victim at long last tells someone what happened, is believed, and supported, gets to confront the tormentor, and (most importantly) doesn't have to live in fear and shame and guilt and … doesn't have to feel _like that _anymore?

Nice and simple.

Eames didn't expect anything like that.

Because she's a cop, she knows - nobody is a perfect victim. Not even her. She didn't expect anything like justice, or even satisfaction. She didn't expect a happy ending, or a nice ending. At most, she hoped she'd make it through. And if Bobby hadn't stopped loving her at the other end? Well, that'd be a bonus.

_(But oh, if she could have just forgotten about it all. Forgotten, and just gloried in wing-soft accidentally-on-purpose touches, and secret glances that felt like exactly like slanting golden sunbeams through leafy green canopies, if she could have drifted on the candy-sweet space, the 'after I told him' space. The 'before he finally thought to ask that next most obvious question' space. Before.)_

And if she had known what was going on downstairs, if she'd had even the smallest inkling, she would have stopped it. She would have said to him and to Rodgers,

_You have no idea what you're doing._

/

/

It would have been nice if they could have conducted a formal interview at the one-six the way they'd planned. Invited him to talk "off the record." Let a few of his own fine detectives have a little chat with him about the way things were shaping up. Ask him a few key questions, like; was aware that bacteria has DNA? Or that the NYPD keeps all (yes, _all_) those annual-general physical blood samples in storage? Ask him if he realized that - even in the lobby, the elevator, the parking garage, even in the stairwells and the bathrooms - that _someone_ is _always_ watching?

It would have been nice if they could have had a chance to show him the evidence and maybe even provoke a confession out of him.

But there was that other problem - the one Kathy Jarrow had pointed out to them just before they'd provoked a confession out of her.

Major Case leaked like a sieve.

/

/

And for the record, it wasn't Liz Rodger's fault. Even though Bobby very nearly lost his mind after Ross let him know that he knew about his paternity test, she never said a word to Danny about the rest of it.

She was not the leak.

And to be honest, she was a little bit miffed at Goren, considering.

But she got over it.

/

She even got over Danny. It hurt to hurt him like that, but it was the truth. That day, after Goren's outburst. She had to tell him _something_.

But regardless of how foolishly he'd been behaving, regardless of how much a fool _some people _in the department seemed to think he was, Liz knew that Danny Ross was no fool. Naïve? Yes, absolutely. And maybe even foolishly loyal to the wrong people. But not worthy of her contempt, no. Not deserving of the utterly ridiculous place in the unfolding events that he now inhabited and not deserving of the role he'd been set up to play.

So she planned all day what she'd say to him when he came - because she knew he'd be back - back to confront her about all this. About how long she'd known, and about how involved she'd become.

She felt terrible about it, she really did. She had feelings for Danny. She thought, given time, they could have had something … nice. But she just couldn't lie to him, not while he was searching her face with those lovely green eyes, looking at her so hopefully for something like a sign that she could put _if not him_, then at least _the job _ahead of this.

And in the end, it turned out that she didn't have to say a word. Her arms (crossed) and her jaw (stubborn) said it all. He slumped in slo-mo.

"Fine," he said. And headed for the door.

Then she couldn't let him go like that.

"Danny,"

He paused at her use of his first name at work, stayed at the door with his back to her, but turned his head to show he was listening.

"I like you. _A lot_." She paused, wanting him to understand. "But what wouldn't you do?"

He stayed like that for most of a minute, absorbing the layers of significance or perhaps considering his boys. Who knew what? It was a surprising vulnerability he let her see, but Danny Ross stayed with his hand resting on the doorframe for almost one whole minute. Softness that kept him from looking at her again. He simply said,

"I understand."

And then he was gone.

Rodgers allowed herself the luxury of staring at the empty space where he'd just been for a few more seconds before she gathered herself up and got back to the body on her slab.

/

/

She'd had to call in many professional favours. Had placed another call - someone else to watch her back, and she wasn't going to over-think _that_, because who the hell else would she have called, anyway?

If she hadn't started with her contacts at the Department of Health and the CDC and worked her way backwards, she probably never would have found these things. But a colleague at the Health Department told her, _"This way will work." _

And she was right.

There were only so many cases matching the specifics or at least what she figured were the specifics - and Rodgers was working on a set of educated hunches at best - she knew the season, for example. And the most probable kind of infection.

The Department of Health files weren't personalized.

_Unsub. Female. Approximate age - sixteen. _

_Chlamydia Trachomatis bacterium ... Infection source unknown. _

_Patient treated with appropriate antibiotics. _

_Information forwarded by White Plains Women's Health Services Clinic,_ July 1984.

That was all.

And she had lied to get the file from White Plains. She, Liz Rodgers, had told a couple of bald-faced lies over there in White Plains. Being a doctor and an employee of the NYPD helped. Still. She had the photocopied pages of that medical file in her possession, with the hand-written notations in the margins that were perhaps too personalized.

_'ID - fake. Guess her age (patient is very small, so … ?) ? Reported? NO ** patient emphatic - NO possibility / reporting. (Other trauma? Won't talk. N/I counselor ) - T/A by stand. D & C / vac. - positive for chlamydia - tetracycline? Fwd. report / sample(s) to DoH / CDC - Cash. - No follow-up_.'

She has opened up more people than she can remember. But seeing inside the terribly-horribly-awfully secret life of Alex Eames filled her with an ominous sense of her own power to cut.

She kept those pages hidden even from her own eyes for two days, sat at her desk with her head in her hands and stared at the manila envelope a half dozen times before she made another move.

And then she located two biological samples. One was with the CDC.

One was from the NYPD's very own biostorage.

She ran all the tests herself, discreetly. Which wasn't easy.

Tests like that are expensive. The bean counters tend to notice random, not-officially-requested DNA testing. Especially when it involved biological samples from some of their own cops, their own brass.

So, some more bald-faced lies, but she was getting better at it. And she had discovered that she kind-of liked this sneaking, lying, laying false paper trails and so forth, all to get to the truth. It gave her a twisted kind-of satisfaction. She hoped she'd have a chance to do more of it soon.

Of course, the DNA was a positive match.

_Infection source confirmed. _

Science can be a wonderful thing.

She sat at her desk that day tingling with the thrill of her own private victory. She raised her thermos cup of ginger tea in silent salute to her dear friend.

"_Now somebody else knows_," she told his memory, then sipped her solo toast. "_And now there's proof_."

Now, Dr. Liz Rodgers was unsure how to proceed.

/

She had been known to tell the living _there's a reason she would rather work with the dead_. Lennie was on a short list of the best people she ever knew. Not perfect, but _real. Unashamedly real. _Courageous, moral, a true gentleman.

Though it had eaten at him for years he had hesitated, and his sound, rational, sane reasoning naturally made her pause.

Actually, scared the living shit out of her.

_This was crazy. _

Wasn't it?

But, maybe timing really is everything?

Because she was staring at her cream cheese, sprouts and cucumber on rye thinking about it, wondering what in hell she was going to do when she heard a soft sound, and looked up, and with a wholly-unexpected flood of relief saw (_finally!_) Goren standing in her office doorway looking for all the world like a reluctant schoolboy. And then he asked her if she could do him a favour.

* * *

**A/N part two**: Many women's health centres around the world have reported this sad fact - young women who have been victims of abuse often only learn that they have been infected with an STI (sexually transmitted infection) when they seek medical help for an unplanned pregnancy.

The leading cause female infertility in America is the effects of undiagnosed, untreated STIs.


	36. Chapter 36

**Set in season 8.**

* * *

(Notes from Bobby's binder:)

_If half of all females are sexually molested before their eighteenth birthday, then half are not._

_If half the girls who are molested show signs of trauma for the rest of their lives, then half do not.  
_

_/  
_

He was making her coffee.

She could hear him out there in his cold little kitchen, grinding beans, measuring water and clattering around with the drip machine, humming _(humming!) _while he busied himself making her a morning cup.

_(so strong, so sweet, so hot … ) _

He was making her a morning cup of coffee before going to work.

But not before tugging her into wakefulness with only the gentle strength of his gaze. Not before bathing her in fairy kisses, washing her with puffs of breath everywhere, with little brushes of his lips and tiny endearments.

_(strong, sweet, hot)_

Not before being sure to fill her completely with her own deliciousness.

She didn't feel even a little bit like hiding her smile.

_(strong, sweet, hot … )_

She didn't feel even a little bit like disagreeing with him.

She said, _I could definitely get used to this._

So here she was, in Bobby's bed with his eiderdown pulled up to her nose and both eyes determinedly pressed shut against the pale early light, stretching her legs into the spot he'd vacated, absorbing his heat. Listening to him in the kitchen.

Just thinking about this, right then and there, entirely unclothed in his bed in the early morning.

Allowing herself to absorb his warmth.

Allowing herself to bask in his devotion.

And allowing herself to simply acknowledge this plain truth -

He was scared, too.

Of course, he'd seen it right away. He closed his door against the bitter cold and everything else out there and leaned against it. His back against his door, Glock in his hand, staring.

Staring.

"I'm sorry, Bobby. I should've called first," she started apologizing, her bag bulging against her hip.

So many things. So much stuff.

She gathered herself with a quick frown. "I know it was my decision that we, that it had to be like this," and she paused.

A lame non-answer to a pretty direct question.

"_What are you doing here?"_

She wasn't sure how to explain. Where to begin.

It took a healthy dose of discipline, but she did not scratch her nose.

She looked anywhere but at him.

Even at this ungodly hour, she'd interrupted him reading. A stack piled on the floor, _Modern Genetic Analysis_ on top. There on the seat of the chair, a slim, worn copy of _The Mysterious Stranger, _a _Smithsonian_ draped over the arm.

Water in a tall glass and cherry tomatoes in a small dish on the side table.

No stale cigarette-smoke-and-dirty-socks air. No pizza boxes.

Just Bobby, clean-shaven and barefoot, leaning with his back against his door and his Glock in his hand, clicking the safety back on.

_I was wrong _would be a good place to begin_. _

_I can't stop feeling like I've made a mistake. Like this is a mistake_. A healthy admission. Truthfulness. This would also be good.

How about_, I'm scared_?

Or, _I love you._

She picked something less dramatic.

"I can't sleep."

He kept staring. She took a deep breath.

"I … . I miss you."

She could hear a clock somewhere, ticking.

"Ever since last summer, it's almost as though …"

He wasn't making it easy on her, leaning there, staring. _Say something_, she thought at him. He stared. She frowned, feeling conspicuous, self-conscious. Standing in the middle of his sitting room in her boots and coat, thinking that she'd maybe made a mistake.

She told him again, "I can't sleep. I miss you. I'm sorry to show up like this, I didn't mean to … I should have called."

Then she looked directly at him, into his guarded face, into his wary eyes. The door seemed so far away.

"I just keep going over and over that … just the way she looked and I keep thinking, _what if there's no more time?" _Then she scratched her nose, sighed, said, "And actually, I think that some wuh ... _what_?"

Because he'd pushed away from the door, given his head a little shake, then and broken into a boyish grin.

"You. You're ridiculous."

He put his weapon in its spot beside his shield. Then moved toward her, deliberately slowly, like he was afraid she might bolt.

She sagged a bit, her relief smoothing the line of her upper lip, undoing the hitch in her shoulders.

"What, did you think I wouldn't want you here?"

Her face belied her real uncertainty, and her embarrassment about it.

He's strong and he's a lot bigger than she is so it wasn't much for him to stoop a bit and wrap his arms around her and pick her up, bag and all, carry her to his bedroom.

"You're here. You know I'm not letting you leave again, right?"

/

"You think what?" He mumbled into her shoulder later on, and some of her hair was in his mouth and he was _so happy._

"Hmm?"

"When you came in … _'you think some_' … ?"

"Oh," she said, roused enough by the question to wiggle further down his body, snug in alongside him, scrambling a bit below their waists with one hand.

"Blanket, please."

He reached down and pulled it up to cover them.

She tensed herself up, stretched her toes, her back, her arms. Then released, relaxed, curled up against his side with her head resting on his arm. Feeling good, so good. Even his exposed armpit smelled clean and good. So like him. So comfortable.

So safe.

She sighed a little bit, rested her hand on his chest and he covered it with one of his. Then she said,

"Someone's been in my house."


	37. Chapter 37

"_I tell you everything, and hope that you won't tell on me." - C. Love._

/

/

There had been a _her_ Bobby.

Someone she _thought she knew_. Someone she thought she could trust.

Her partner, Detective Bobby Goren.

_Him._

There, wordless and solid, that first and last night with her non-child.

There, anguished but strong enough, telling her, _"It, it was Jo … Gage."_

Holding the plastic dish and holding her while she vomited.

Him, his hands.

"_Can I?" _His touch like butterfly kisses, _"Open. Close."_

After all the long months alone and unsure, that fear had built up and up.

And up.

But then, on his knees at her feet in her kitchen.

Him, and the heat of his skin on her skin.

On his knees at her feet, both of them drowning, reaching.

"_Please."_

She didn't want that to be over.

She just didn't want it to be over.

"What did you do, Bobby?"

Not tonight.

Not this night.

Sensing that he was about to speak, she silenced Ross with a look that likely would have killed a lesser man. Turned back to her partner, back to Bobby.

"Just say it. Tell me what you did."

In his silence and the furtive glance he couldn't stop himself from sharing with Danny Ross, she just knew. Already regretting, already shutting down, she still did not want this to be true.

On top of everything else. On top of every fucking thing else.

_Please._

She wanted him to tell her something (_anything_) except what he wasn't telling her.

But he couldn't.

He could only tell her about the confrontation downstairs. He could only tell her that _he knew._ He knew about everything.

And she thought that it was too bad that she hadn't known about 'everything,' especially since _'everything' _apparently included …

Her uterus cramped sharply.

_Oh._

_This is why he came back without the coffee._

_Why Ross is looking at me like that._

"Who else did you talk to?"

_Not tonight._

He told her who. He told her what.

_Not this night._

"Okay," she said to them.

Turned in her chair back to the table and shuffled the photographs of Nicole's heart, so nicely tucked into its nest of white satin, all wreathed with rosy smears. She neatly aligned the edges and slipped them into the brown file folder. Placed it on a tidy stack of similar brown file folders. Then she reached for the photos of Frank Goren lying on the pavement and Frank Goren on Liz Rodgers' slab, Frank Goren's open, staring eyes, and thought that it seemed like her hand looked very old under the white fluorescents, like the hand of another person, an older and maybe a wiser person. She thought idly that perhaps it was someone else's hand, that her real hand might be on the end of someone else's arm.

Then wondered if she was perhaps in shock.

Shock wouldn't be too weird, really, she thought. Not too unexpected.

All things considered …

Spending nearly all of her time with him had been a strange pairing of equal parts dream-come-true and total nightmare.

A lot of sex, and yes, that was very nice.

He was very good at sex.

He could definitely make her forget all her troubles for awhile.

For awhile, it seemed like he planned to keep her in that state of forgetfulness semi-permanently. Not that she was complaining … but.

And the giddiness, she supposed, that had come from the clearing of the slate, from the freshness of honesty that she had believed to be between them now.

But he had moved very quickly and quietly and purposefully from the business of processing the information she had given him, to vigilance and keen paranoia and liquid fear, and a burgeoning compulsion to be 'the protector'.

Had taken to scribbling notes in his binder, carefully shielding the page he was working on with a curved arm.

Had more-or-less stopped sleeping. Had to be coerced into eating.

Kept his eyes hooded, guarded, wary.

Until she was spending every waking moment in his company, sleeping at work …

Dream and nightmare.

He had been persuaded to let her spend time with her nephew on her own, at least. She was permitted to sleep at her sister's house twice each week without him. He managed to let her out of his sight for that long without a breakdown.

Then his brother had to go and get killed, and every tiny particle of terror had exploded into a phantasm of heart palpitations and sweating and confusion and nervous twitches.

Because his brother was killed.

Because someone murdered his brother.

Someone had got Nicole Wallace to murder his brother and feed their Captain tips about insurance policies so now it was looking like he murdered his brother.

_And who would do a thing like that?_

Focus.

She pulled her lined pad of notes over, picked up the pen on top. She looked blindly at the notes she'd written there, unable to comprehend the shapes in blue ink. There in the top right corner, a spiral scribble when her pen wouldn't work. Used all her discipline, every ounce of it. Forced herself to focus on the scribble. Recalled (was all that only yesterday?) the conversation as she made the scribble.

Agitated, she had been.

They were quarreling.

_"He is not involved in this."_

_"You're so sure? I'm not sure."_

_"This is too much about fucking with me personally. Too much of a game. He's a cop. He's too by-the-book. And why would he bring someone like her into it? Nicole was … territorial."_

_"Pfffft. Really, you think?"_

_"I'm just sayin' … I can't see her sharing. Not information about - look, there's no reason to think she even knew about this other thing … she woulda used that if she'd known."_

_"Right. And someone sent her heart to the honeymoon suite because nobody has a clue."_

_"That isn't the same. Declan, when you were … when. Uh, … . Eames, do you really think it's his style? He'd just arrange an accident, right? Why would he even know about the Melville thing?"_

_"Bobby. Ross said she is your 'white whale.' Where do you think he got the idea for that little turn of phrase? This isn't exactly an unknown."_

_"It isn't him, Eames. It isn't. I was worried. I admit, I thought … . But when Declan said it would be somebody very close to me, somebody with intimate knowledge of my entire life … you know, he said it might be you -"_

_"Yeah, I know he wants that thought floating out there. He said as much in front of Ross."_

_"He did?"_

_"He said that I know my partner better than anyone."_

_"You do."_

_"Yeah, I know more about you than anyone so it might be me. Sure. Right."_

_"That isn't what I meant. You know even more than …"_

_"Than Declan?"_

Declan.

Back to Declan.

Keeps coming back to Declan.

Time to have a little talk with Declan.

Focus.

She said out loud for Ross's benefit, "He bought the poison in April, paid cash, and if the fact that he's a loathsome troll hadn't already attracted their attention, he attempted to disguise his appearance with a baseball hat and sunglasses. They remember him there. No paperwork, nothing like physical evidence. But he did lie … about his daughter, among other things. I think we can say for that we're comfortable with bringing him in first thing in the morning. I'll call down at six and have the dispatch office call him, then we'll send a cruiser to pick him up. And, we thought that you should bring him in when he gets here, get him feeling like he's important, a 'member of the team'."

When she looked up at Bobby still standing there and Ross still standing there, staring at her, her anger rose.

"Am I wrong in thinking that we're going to get back to work now?"

"Alex," Bobby began. His face was ashen and his fists were tight balls. She silenced him with a potent glare. His jaw was working, and he looked away.

"Eames," Ross said, and she turned her face to him.

"What?"

"This … I had no idea. I'm in shock. I don't know what to … how to … "

"How nice for you." Her words were acid. "Now if you don't mind - while you're deciding how to feel about this titillating revelation, we've got a case here. My partner is being targeted. One of your best detectives is being targeted. Tonight is not the night for … "

"Alex," Bobby said again, plaintively now, and she shot him another sharp look.

He needed to talk.

She did not want to talk.

"Eames," Ross said again, "I'm sorry. I'm deeply sorry that you have been forced to work in an environment that is … I … wasn't aware that you …"

"Have a nasty little incest thing going with my cousin Denny, I know. Now you know. So?"

The silence following this was generating a vacuum and she thought she might actually be sucked inside-out in a moment. Then realized she was holding her breath, and exhaled slowly through her nose. Then turned her blazing eyes back to Bobby.

But now he wasn't looking at her.

Now, Bobby was looking away.

She bit down on the bitterness of his betrayal even while it was filling her up to her throat. But she could feel a shattering in her core. A trembling was beginning. Her ears were ringing. She needed to hurry.

"We discussed this before our attempted coffee break, as well. I think it's a bad idea. But all things being what they are, Detective Goren is going to do this one himself. Maybe you can talk to him about it. I already tried." She tossed her pen onto the notepad. "I can't do this anymore tonight. Considering neither of you seem interested in continuing to do our jobs, I'm going upstairs to get a few hours in the crib before daybreak. "

"What about the …" Bobby's voice was husky with emotion - grief or fury, she didn't know which.

"I can't do anything about it tonight," she told him, and pushed her chair away from the table, and stood up. "He isn't going to go on a rampage. He likes to show his hand when he knows he's holding a good one. He's just letting you know what he's playing. The rest of it's a bluff." She addressed Ross with a cool nod, said, "I'm sure you know what a good poker player he is, Captain. You know he'll pull back now, watch and wait. That's his habit."

"But, he's still in the building."

"So what? He's always in the building, Bobby."

"I … I don't think you should go upstairs by yourself."

She could barely stand to see his face, he was so hurt. And angry. Very angry.

But so was she.

"Who needs to pry now?" She said it before she had time to bite her tongue.

"That's not it," he insisted. "I wasn't looking for that. Don't, don't think that. I … I have to stop him from …"

She interrupted him with a rude snort, jeered at him, " _'To stop him from_.' What a bunch of bullshit!"

The Captain was there, now wisely keeping his mouth clamped shut.

"Look at me," she demanded, and he did.

She was sure it was all over.

But in case it wasn't, she asked him, "Do you know me at all?"

Then Bobby was looking right at her, and seeing her.

"There is nothing terrible here that you need to save me from."

"Nothing terrible?" He was incredulous.

"For god's sake, Bobby, don't turn into a … at this point in our relationship? You're going to take issue with someone else _fucking me_?"

He flinched, and she felt so sad.

Ross's mouth fell open a fraction and his eyes popped out a bit.

"Don't act like it's a no big deal, Alex. When you were a child."

"You'll never make a case for that."

"He can't deny DNA evidence."

She shook her head, arms crossed defensively over her breasts. Said with control, "You have no idea how easily _evidence gets lost_. And evidence _gets found_."

They looked at each other over the table. Looked and looked, and she placed her hands down on the table top with her fingers spread wide and leaned on her arms, and sighed.

She said, "What do you do for a living? Denny Moran is Chief of Detectives. There's a reason besides nepotism that he has that job. He is very, very good at what he does. I'm a cop, too. In this job, I have seen things that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. _Not_ counting my contact with Jo Gage."

She could feel his involuntary physical response to the reminder. There it was, even across dead air space, the invisible arcing of electricity that just the mention of the name always brought between them, as deeply frightening as always. But she held his gaze and held her ground.

Told him, "You wouldn't be acting like this if I was a man." And dared him with the prolonged silence that followed to deny it.

He said, "You aren't a man."

"It was just sex. That's all it was. And it was a long time ago. You know what he's going to say, and you will never be able to prove it wasn't consensual. And you know what? There are a couple of thousand women in this city right now who _do_ need to be saved. I'm not one of them." She glared at Ross, used her index finger and her whole arm for emphasis, said, "And you do not need to save me from him. He is my partner and my friend and my ally, and my lover. _Not_ a threat. Capice?"

In spite of himself (she could tell), he let escape a small sound, her partner. A strangled noise, pleasure and agony. But still his voice rose. "You can't expect me to do nothing?" His disbelief could have been funny under other circumstances.

"Yes, that's exactly what I expect you to do," she answered. "That's what you have to do."

"I can't."

It was a statement of fact, and a bottom line.

And the location of the impasse.

And maybe the point.

She had carefully kept the bulk of the table between them through this exchange, but she rounded it now, came to stand directly in front of him, close enough to feel the heat of his skin even through their clothes.

"Then you have to make some choices. Get your head together about this. Who you are, and who I am."

Her eyes begged him, _please, don't say it, Bobby. please don't say it. please don't_.

She took the biggest risk she could. She put her hand on his chest right over his heart. She asked him quietly, "Are we partners?"

"Yes."

"So then you're going to have to trust me."

Just like that. Punctuation is just like that.

He inspected his shoes, sighed deeply, then sighed deeply again. And that was that.

"Maybe you two can do some debriefing while I'm gone." She shot Ross a pointed look. "Start with Frank's insurance policy - I'm assuming he gave you a head's up? That's where this came together for you?" Ross, looking contrite, nodded. "Then, maybe you two can start fresh? Stop this boring Neanderthal pissing war? If you really want to do something to improve my work environment, Captain, that'd be a nice change."

As she was turning to leave, Ross dared to say. "Eames, you know you aren't in this alone. We can protect you. You can trust us."

She looked at her Captain for a moment, somewhat as though she was seeing him for the first time.

Then she burst out laughing.

/

And after she was gone, Ross asked Bobby.

"Just what the hell does he have on her?"

And then Bobby punched the wall.

/

/

They miss Danny.

Much, much more than either of them thought it possible to miss anyone.

It's like a hole.

They work around it.

Try not to think about it too much.

But they miss him.


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N: Reverse continuation of the last chapter - takes place during 'Frame.'**

* * *

(Notes from Bobby's binder:)

_Self-preservation is behavior that ensures the survival of an organism. It is universal among living organisms … Self-preservation may also be interpreted figuratively, as in 'Self' preservation; in regard to the coping mechanisms one needs to prevent emotional trauma from distorting the mind. _

The second time Moran came for him, he was ready.

But the first time …

What he said was; "Does she know what you're up to? Because I'm thinking she doesn't have a clue."

"Excuse me?"

His demeanor was casual, standing there. But Bobby wasn't fooled. This was familiar. The Army, undercover Narcotics, Testarossa's office. He knew the smell and the taste, the feral expectation of a battle to the death.

"I don't think you know her as well as you think you do. But I know her, have known her for her whole life. So, I know that she knows who she is. She understands her place in the world. Detective Eames is an exemplary officer. She has a good career, and a future here in law enforcement. The NYPD is her home, her family. It's in her blood. This is what she is meant to do. She has a long-term plan, did you know? No, of course you don't." Moran stared at him, staring him down. "She's supposed to have made Lieutenant by now, and she would have. But she hasn't. She hasn't even written the exam. Instead, she's still here, sticking with you, her mental case partner dragging her into who knows what, keeping her back. Pulling her down." Moran pointed his finger at Bobby's chest. "Do the right thing."

The energy-saving half-light in the corridor made the unfolding confrontation feel dreamy. First being surprised by the Chief, lurking in a dim, deserted hallway at three o'clock in the morning. The Chief, detaching himself from a shadow, blocking Bobby's return to the elevator. The Chief, standing with arms akimbo and chin jutting out stubbornly, both mannerisms too horribly familiar.

Reminiscent of her at every crime scene.

Or in the hospital seeing Declan.

At the airport in Phoenix.

_Phoenix._

_Was that this week? _

Too much coffee and not enough sleep already.

And here, the Chief.

Heart plummeted but did not touch bottom. His head began to swim and throb with the potent cocktail of nicotine, caffeine and adrenaline coursing through his system.

They faced each other over the pair of fresh vending machine coffees in Bobby's hands. They faced each other over lies and truths, over the absent body in the center of what he could now see was truly and fully a War.

"If you had any respect at all for her, you would do the right thing," he told Bobby.

"R-Respect? Did you say '_r-respect for her'_?"

Moran plastered his face with a twisted grin.

"Yes, _r-r-respect." _He stepped closer, raised his chest authoritatively, used a sneery voice. "Do you think I don't know? That you think you found out some things, right? Clever Detective Goren, invading his partner's privacy behind her back. Right? Because I'd bet my life that she doesn't know what you're up to." He smirked, made a gloating noise, said, "I didn't think so. I've got a good idea what kind of things you and Dr. Rodgers think you found out. Things that are none of your business. Right?"

Beyond the thunder of blood in his ears, he could hear the man continue.

"I think I have a pretty good idea. And so, here you are. The great big hero? Thinking you're going to redeem yourself for every other thing in her life that you screwed up? Right?"

The air between them pulsed and speechless … Bobby Goren was speechless.

"And then what? Save her, and then you get to claim the prize? You're going to get what? Get to keep fucking her?" The sneer oozed across his face. "Yeah, I know about that, too, so drop the 'holier than thou' crap. Like you haven't been helping yourself to anything you can get. You can add that to the list of things you've done to compromise her reputation. How long's that list going to get?" Denny Moran abruptly stopped smiling. "You're supposed to be a cop, too. You think you'd know better." Then stepped closer. "There are two sides to every story. And if you think for a minute that I'm not fully prepared to defend myself from any distortions of the facts or outright lies you've cooked up. If you or Liz Rodgers think you are going to just …" he let the thought trail away into an unmapped future. Then he shook his head with total assurance of his own rightness. "That isn't going to happen. She has respect for the uniform and for the order of things, for the brotherhood, like every good cop. She gets it. In fact, it looks like you're the only one around here who doesn't get it. Now, you're even involving other employees of the Department in your crazy little game? What do bad apples do to the barrel?"

Moran paused. Bobby's mouth was filled with the taste of coffee and stomach acid.

"I'll tell you what I think. I think you better leave this alone. And you better leave her alone."

"Leave her alone? I'd, I'd better leave her …" he stammered dumbly.

"I'm telling you that she's not for you, Goren," Moran changed his belligerent pose for a more confident hands-on-hips.

And Bobby is not an amateur with this process and he knew he was being goading. He did. But he couldn't seem to stop from tipping his head to the left oh so slightly or stop his mouth from forming the words, or keep his outrage from filling his lungs, his throat from giving them sound.

"Not … not 'for me'?" Sick feeling sick feeling sick, he realized. _Too late_.

He had made a terrible mistake.

"Who is she for?"

The veneer slipped away and Bobby got to see his real face. Got to see what Eames already knew.

Realized something he should have realized already.

But it was too late.

His hands were stiff-clenched around the cups but they opened up just like flowers, and gravity was just as it always had been. The cups dropped toward the clean tile floor. The cup from his left hand, his already-going-for-his-gun hand, had a little spin in it and it tipped, the fluid streaming up and out and away in a slow, steaming arc. The cup from his right hand fell straight down hitting the floor with a loud _clock, _the contents exploding upwards, a dark brown geyser. All the while, him still reaching for his weapon.

As though in a dream.

"_Eames," _he thought, _"I'm sorry."_

He was still reaching and recognizing that all the energy like a long-coiled spring, all the evil that she had been containing with nothing but the strength of her will, with nothing but her _self _was about to be loosed, and he hadn't even given her a _head's up_, and it was already _too late_.

Chief Moran smiled gleefully, and Bobby's eyes traveled to his right hand, and saw, and really wasn't at all surprised.

That Alex's cousin Denny Moran had been waiting for him. That cousin Denny had been counting on him being the kind of hot-head who'd reach for his gun when presented with this obscene version of the story.

As Bobby Goren was reaching for the weapon in the holster on his hip, he saw (_too late_) that Moran had somehow concealed a taser, had it ready in his hand.

And he was surprised to find that there is yet another cliché that is true - that his life was actually flashing before his eyes.

Not the past.

But forward.

The unmapped future.

In which, if he survived whatever came next, he would still be that _whack job_, that rogue cop who went crazy in the middle of the night and pulled his service weapon to shoot (_kill kill kill killed_) the Chief of Detectives of the New York City Police Department in the hallway outside a break room at One Police Plaza, and it was all over.

_(Our top story tonight - High drama at the NYPD - a New York City Detective shot and killed the Chief of Detectives inside One Police Plaza early this morning. We begin this evening as even more details emerge around the deadly shooting, in what is rapidly becoming a bizarre tale of passion gone wrong. Amanda? Thank you, Kenneth. Good evening. In what inside sources say appears to be a deadly 'love triangle,' Detective Robert O. Goren killed his superior officer, Chief of Detectives Denholm Donald Moran, in a corridor on the fourth floor. We take you now, live, to One Police Plaza, where Jeff Williams has been talking to some of New York's finest about the events and the players in this unfolding drama. Kevin? Thanks Amanda. Well, it's been a day filled with surprises, here at New York City Police Headquarters. Chief of Detectives Denny Moran is dead from a single bullet wound to the head, and Detective Robert Goren is at in custody at New York Downtown Hospital. He's an NYPD 'Major Case' detective, so one of "New York's finest's" finest. It appears that this tragedy may have been sparked by some long-simmering animosity between these two men, over their respective relationships with Detective Goren's partner, a Detective Alexandra Eames. It has now been confirmed that Detective Eames and Chief Moran were, in fact, first cousins, and there have been suggestions … well, frankly, more than just suggestions, that she was or had been involved in 'fraternizing' relationships with both men, so jealously may have played a role in last night's or rather this morning's unexpected violence. Detective Goren himself had undergone a lengthy suspension from duty following a psychiatric breakdown last year, and we can only speculate as to what the causes of that were. There's been no word yet if he is out of surgery, or even what kind of an injury he sustained during the incident … ) _

In the unlikely event that he even survived the rest of the night, there'd be a trial or maybe, to make it easier on her …

_(… saga ended with the NYPD 'Whack Job's' guilty plea. But who is the female police officer at the center of this tragedy? Who is Alexandra Eames? If her name sounds familiar, well, it should. She's the very same female officer who escaped from deranged sex killer, Jo-Anne Gage, a few years back. We all hailed her as a hero then. Well my friends, since I have had the pleasure - if you can call it that - of meeting with both these members of the NYPD on several different occasions - they were the lead investigators on the Judge 'Hot-tub Harry' Garrett case and also during the investigation into the senseless murder of our own fallen comrade, Boz Burnham, just this last winter - I can tell you a thing or two about her myself from my own experience. So let me start by saying that, in my opinion, the allegation that she was somehow being victimized by her superior officer, slain Chief of Detectives Denny Moran, well, that is just plain ridiculous. In all my years working this desk and reporting to you, I have never met a tougher, more no-nonsense officer. People, she got away from a serial killer. She is a __rock__. And, even if it turns out to be true, and friends, you know that I would never make light of such a serious issue as child sex abuse, but honestly? What kind of a person works with their rapist? For years? I don't think so. I smell something rotten in the state of Denmark. So, let's take a look at what we've found out about Detective Alexandra Eames from some of her former co-workers and colleagues inside the police department, and with sources inside the District Attorney's office … )_

Easier on her.

And then prison, and orange coveralls with a number and the name of the institution in possession of his mortal remains stenciled in block letters. There'd be cell blocks. Locks. Manacles. Razor wire. He'd be under observation and be required to consume the behaviour-modifying medications that they'd insist he take, and he'd take them and struggle to maintain a modest approximation of himself for the twenty-five to life that would constitute the remainder of his days, maintain a semblance of sanity in order to qualify for permission to see her for one hour once a month. Not touch her (_never again touch her_), because there is no touch in prison.

Then the past came rushing up to meet him, intersected sharply with the future in the hallway near the break room. The moment she changed from 'my partner' to '_My Woman' _burst forth from the private store of his most preciously-guarded of memories, in Pennsylvania, wanting nothing more from him than to be touched.

All this was supposed to be _for her._

But now, he'd just see her, hear her voice through the phone, see her face through the Plexiglas. Cover her hand with his hand against the barrier, see her for one hour once each month. She would come, he knew. If he even survived this night, she would come. She would make the long drive to wherever he was being kept. She'd pass through each security gate and through every metal detector. He knew that she'd come. She'd sit and talk to him and feed him tidbits about her even emptier life. She would cover the blossoms of spider veins on the apples of her cheeks with makeup, and would try to smile for him, and she would smile less and less.

From his place on the wrong side, he'd have to be strong enough, have to be able to watch her fade out a little more, and a little more. Watch her become pale, and grey.

For the twenty-five to life that would constitute the remainder of his days.

"_Alex," _he thought_. "Please forgive me."_

Bobby can get a little melodramatic sometimes.

Of course he didn't pull his weapon and he didn't fire. Moran, too, froze.

Because in those fragmented, warping seconds, all the hair on his body suddenly rose. He knew without turning his head that someone else was in the hallway with them, had in fact been in the hallway throughout the entire interaction. Undetected, (_in stealth mode), _someone had been observing in silence from just within the doorway to the break room. Had borne witness to the entire thing. Now becoming known, emitting a recognizable energy signature. Materializing into a presence.

An unexpectedly formidable presence.

Who nodded to Moran.

Who took station at Bobby's left elbow.

Whose understated greeting felt like a cloud burst on an angry day in August.

"Good evening, Chief," Danny said.


	39. Chapter 39

**A/N: 'Lady's Man'.**

* * *

She was stomping across the wide open beach - of course with Bobby. It was very cold. Atlantic Beach in the dead of winter wasn't even remotely inviting. Frozen ridges of sand feeling like uneven carpet underfoot, unyielding beneath her boots.

It was a perfect winter day. The sky was spectacularly blue. The sunlight was strong and clear, and it cast an uncountable number of sparkles, all flashing from the surface of the ocean, blinding in their brilliance. But not warming her exposed skin - not with the off-shore breeze cutting through her parka and turtleneck sweater and t-shirt and undershirt. Her cheeks felt chapped. Her lips were stiff and the tender skin cracking open. Speaking was awkward_. _

They were trudging down towards the water, walking side-by-side. Commenting idly on the temperature, taking in the scene.

Bobby hadn't said much that was important since leaving the body dump on the river, and she was aware that he was watching her, waiting patiently for something like an explanation.

And she wasn't offering one.

All the way across town, she'd kept her eyes on the road ahead. Her mouth mostly pressed shut. So he sat with his binder open in his lap and joked instead, trying to draw her in to the game with details, trying to get her to laugh and relax.

(Number three - was, uh, _rufied, cuffed to the steering wheel of car and let go. _But there's the danger to innocent bystanders, so its still got a question mark.)

(Number four - is the 'wiseguy special!' _Cement boots into a deep part of the river_. Uh, checking first for possible submarine interference, of course.)

(Well, it can stay at number two, for now, and we can revisit the issue if Dave-O gets early parole … right?)

(Number fifteen -I still think it's viable. I really do. Okay, maybe not the _illicit substance_, but dioxin poisoning … )

(No, I don't agree that it's _too _inappropriate, because number seventeen was in worse taste.)

(I called it 'the Cheney', not 'the Dick.' Hunting accident - they're still quite common - needs an untraceableweapon, though. Really, uh, has the most potential, so far.)

And, considering the identity of this victim, he was getting a real kick out some … _things_.

"This could be number twenty, Eames," he suggested. "Let's call it _'Removal of part or all of the uh … manhood, with a jagged cutting tool'_. "

"You said 'manhood' _and _'tool' " she said, and he laughed.

"True, but 'tool' is in context ..."

"I'll let it slide. Just this time. The _'removal of all or part' _was post-mortem. He didn't die from that injury."

"No, but the list isn't just about that. Right? Like twelve?"

"'_Outbound jet.' _Trans-Atlantic, JFK."

"So, this is like that. Doesn't matter how we heard about it. In _his _case, the application of that uh … _method_ would still result in his death."

"First _'manhood'_, now '_method,' _she snorted. "Nice euphemisms, Detective. Up there with 'TWEP'."

"Twep."

" '_Terminate with extreme prejudice'_. "

"Like Kurtz. Yes, but 'with _extreme_ prejudice'? I don't know about that. 'Extreme' as in 'extending far beyond the norm?' Apparently not too 'extreme.' I mean, there's a, uh, a man in the morgue right now with these _injuries, _so somebody thought it up on their own and thought it was a good enough idea." He smiled warmly to her and scribbled little notes to himself by turns as he chatted.

The strangling sensation lessened and she felt dirty, and she _liked it._

He said, "There's nothing wrong with a bit of, of 'gallows humour,' a bit of fantasy. To blow off some steam."

Her eyebrows twitched up once, a little surprised, but only a little.

"Is that what this is? Just some fantasy?"

"Isn't it?"

"I love it when you answer a question with a question."

He didn't say anything until she glanced at him - saw him wearing his _'this is an important subject' _face.

"Nothing's changed, as far as that goes" he told her, using his _'I'm being deadly serious' _voice.

She made no comment. And he whispered her name across the space between them until she looked at him again, into his face. His eyes were soft and unguarded. They were begging her, _please believe me, please_.

"Nothing has changed," he said again. "I gave you my word."

She put her eyes back on the road and swallowed against the lump there. Then nodded.

She wanted to say it out loud, but they were at work. They were at work, so she just nodded.

After a moment, he picked up the thread of the conversation again.

" '_Prejudice_,' as in 'an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts'? No, that doesn't apply to this situation. I am aware of the facts, ma'am."

"Hey, watch who you call 'Ma'am'." Her lips curved into a smile and he chuckled.

"Or what? Will you get your boyfriend to rough me up?" He sounded hopeful.

"I might."

His good humour was simply contagious.

"You keep acting so damn happy, someone's going to think you got laid last night, or something" she quipped.

"Mmm. '_Got lucky_,' more like."

They cruised for miles on the easy effervescence of the game. Filled with the comfort of each other's presence, and possibilities, and hopes.

It was cozy inside the SUV. Outside, it was _so cold_.

They walked.

The sea was flat. Her guts were rolling.

As they walked and made idle notice of scenery and temperature, and she thought about how far frozen Atlantic beach was from Bobby's warm bed, how far last night was from today.

_Figures_, she thought.

Of all the rancid, sick _things_ kept girded, kept _there _on the _other side _of the reflection of her own life … .

_An ocean of calm, _she thought, looking out to sea. _I am an ocean of calm. _

They trudged.

Ahead on the sand lay a bundle, rose-dark spots visible even at a distance, and her stomach twisted. But Bobby kept talking, kept _her _talking, kept them focused on their task. He circled around as they talked through the scene, his face turned to hers_._ Used his quietest kind-of voice like an anchor in this world, in _here_ and _now_.

She was _here, _and it was _now_.

It was _his_ home-voice, measuring time, always leading her back from that year, to here, to working side by side, not needing a lot of words.

Working a case in the bright daylight, knowing where she was going to be after it got dark, where she was going to sleep that night.

Had Jenny Burnham been sleeping? How about Martha Burnham? What about her? Could she sleep?

But then again, her own mother … . She'd had to resort to drinking herself to sleep …

Though, truthfully, 'intoxicated into unconsciousness' isn't _really_ sleeping.

Frances? You could tell right away - she hadn't slept _for years_.

She was only receiving palliative care by then, and she had been shiny-bright-eyed from pain, fever, opiates and also from an agitated, semi-triggered-bordering-on-psychotic-break state, but she was lucid. Sort-of.

She said, "She looks nice, Bobby."

She asked Eames to pardon her for her lack of _'hospitality' _and winked … and Eames smiled.

She asked them, did they think they had all the time in the world? They weren't getting any younger.

She told them, _Sometimes you have to listen with different ears, because there is more than one way to tell the story. I think that they aren't all written yet, and some are not remembered. But it's true, I know it's true because I'm a librarian. I got lost in the stacks. It happens all the time _- Bobby? Bobby, you listen to me. You can't prevent them from getting lost, but you can stay put so she can find you. Right? By now, you've had some practice with that. All right? No, don't nod. I need you to say it out loud. Humour me. I'm old and crazy and I'm dying, so humour me. Thank you_. I don't know what your story is, 'Defender of men,' but I can tell you this: _Nobody _can un-eat the seeds. Tell _that_ to all those throwing up girls! Hah! _

No, Frances hadn't slept for years. Anyway, there wasn't a sleep deep enough for her. In the end, only death stopped it, the spinning, spinning, spinning in her brain.

Eames looked at him, and she knew: Tonight, _I will be sleeping like a baby_.

Maybe even only ten minutes ago, there had been that danger that she'd stumble. Become lost.

But Bobby kept circling, used his quietest voice and kept her anchored to him, and he wasn't falling anywhere.

She placed the call to central dispatch, requested a CSU for a major case.

Then after the call, he was still crouching near the ground, but looked up happily at her and all she could think about was that he had looked a lot like that just this morning, just before he'd bounced happily away to his kitchen to make her a cup of coffee, that he had looked _just like that _when he was peeking up the length of her body from his position under the covers, taking a short break from his explorations to tell her,

"_I think I like this little bit right here the best, but I still have to check everything else to be sure … " _

And she thought that it was possible that she was as happy as she'd ever been, right there in her boots on the sand with the jagged cutting tool and the sunlight on frozen Atlantic Beach.

"Eames?" he said. "The gulls. You know, it's different enough. Kinda poetic. What d'you think? Twenty-one?"

She couldn't seem to stop grinning, and they were at work.

They were at work, and she said, "I love you."

He smiled, and she just couldn't seem to stop grinning.


	40. Chapter 40

**Well, I'll say this: they sure are making it easy for me to finish this little story. I'm thoroughly enjoying the final eight and I hope everyone else is, too. Special thanks today to some folks at the ussrelationship and lj who have been helping me slog through some blocks (you know who you are.) **

**All rights reserved by Dick Wolf and some other rich and powerful people. I am a lowly peon. I have no money. Please, don't sue me.**

**"Spoiler" for "Loyalty, Parts 1 & 2"**

* * *

You think he was sad?

Angry? Hurt?

Hardly.

They knew it was coming when Danny was murdered. It was only a matter of time.

When Moran finally decided to play the next hand, Bobby was _elated. _

Because he'd agreed when he got back from Minnesota, had agreed again twice more since then following prolonged, vigorous, intense, extremely unpleasant go-rounds with Eames that left him feeling battered and bereft and sure once again that her will was considerably stronger than his.

Left her so sad.

He couldn't stand it.

And anyway, in his heart, he knew she was right, and he had promised, and as hard as it was (_getting harder, and harder_) he kept his word.

He promised, holding her as close as he could to feel inside and everywhere that the fight was over and it was still okay. He kissed the top of her head and put his cheek against her hair and promised.

"As long as we're workin' there, I won't. I won't do anything else. I promise."

As long as they were still working there.

So, he was _elated._

... ~~~...

Exactly what _"do" _included ought to have been defined beforehand, though.

But maybe Eames knew that, too?

Maybe she knew he wouldn't be able to resist just researching some mostly-unrelated 'things,' that he would be unable to stop himself from (_carefully, more carefully this time_) looking into some … 'stuff,' here and there. Poking around. Making discreet calls to … just some people. Some good folks he knew from way back, from the neighbourhood, from his Army days.

From here and there.

So, maybe there was a little bit of willful ignorance on her part?

(There was definitely a little bit of willful ignorance on her part.)

* * *

What kind of threatening gesture might 'they' extend to someone like Liz Rodgers? To Fin Tutuola?

Or to Elliot Stabler?

Certainly not a dead rat - Elliot's house is too small, too close-knit for that. Someone would notice a stranger at his desk.

No, in his case, a flat manila envelope dropped off by a nondescript blue uniform is much more likely. One of those envelopes that normally contains a photograph - a 'J. Edgar Hoover Special,' exposing a compromising situation, but in Elliot's case (since such a photograph of him would be impossible to acquire) - a shot of one of his daughters. Kathleen, perhaps?

His wife, looking mildly preoccupied, holding the hand of their son, waiting to cross some busy street, somewhere?

Or one of his partner. Taken inside the women's change room in their own precinct, a photograph of freshly showered Olivia Benson, standing in front of her own locker, one arm stretched up reaching for her brush or her deodorant or something on that top shelf. Olivia, all makeup free, towel-rubbed tendrils curling around her ears and sticking to her neck, all clinging, damp little tank-top sculpted against the soft curve of breast, all small tuft of red pubic hair peeking above the waistline of her bikini panties, because realistically? She'd be much easier for them to get to.

You don't believe it. It's all too outrageous, too contrived, too 'Hollywood.'

Really?

After all these years, watching them solve case after case of outrageous acts of cruelty and violence and manipulation and control? Seen the depravity skulking in the hearts of men, (and yes, in the hearts of some women), seen acts of pure evil, committed to satisfy the selfishness, the perverse needs of some psychiatrist or lawyer or judge or prison warden? Men who then lay blame for their crimes on things that are good and right and true - on faith, and devotion to home and family. On passion, and on love.

Even after all these years, it's _still too dramatic? _It stretches credulity too far?

Why? Because it's Alex Eames?

Denny Moran has been counting on that.


	41. Chapter 41

It's a lot of time to spend together.

Five days a week, sometimes twelve, fifteen hours at a stretch.

Home, but only long enough to mess up the covers and wet a bath towel. Leave the faintest trace of fresh brewed coffee in the air and one rinsed cup beside the sink. Or maybe just a quick sleep upstairs on a lumpy bunk in a stuffy room that smelled at all times of shoes, farts and men's grooming products. A shower, some clean clothes, and back at.

It's a lot of time, alone, just the two of them.

_Not_ for surveillance, though sometimes it has been necessary to be the ones watching. Sometimes, they don't trust the detail to anyone else. But, they are Major Case Detectives. They don't generally conduct 'surveillance' anymore.

Mostly, it's because of travel.

New York is a big place. The city, the state. They're big. A decade together, driving and driving all over New York City and New York State.

She was 33 in the beginning. And she could still feel Joe, sometimes. Still feel the sureness of his hands touching, the comfort of his mouth kissing. Still wake herself up alone in her bed choking on those strangled dream-sobs, and still need to roll to his side of the bed and grip the cold pillow lying there, and shake. (But not cry. regardless of what Kevin Mulrooney may have said to shame her in front of her partner, she _did not _cry for poor, dead Joe.)

The job had been a welcome distraction from grief. Because _so much _happened at once, and she doesn't dwell (she doesn't see the point in that), she just pushed it away, shoved it all away and eventually it came to be _over there_, somewhere.

Put away.

Each and every one of us completely regenerates our own skin every seven days.

Every single cell in our skeleton is replaced every seven years. And our bodies are regenerated by the cells inside our bones, inside our skeletons.

Everything except our brains. Our brains remain the same.

She was sitting beside him, sitting in a hard blue plastic chair beside his hospital bed when Joe died.

Nothing dramatic happened. He didn't gasp or shudder or anything like that.

The beeps and blips from the machines that were connected to him everywhere by wires and cords and other things just kept slowing down, getting farther apart.

Then they just … stopped.

And she sat as still as she could as she looked at him, her dead husband, and considered some things. Some expected things, like whether his dress uniform was back from the cleaners. Some utterly incongruent things, like she'd meant to clean the oven this weekend and she supposed that she wouldn't have time now.

And like, in seven years she would no longer be _herself_.

She'd be someone entirely new. Her body entirely new, built out of new things.

No longer made of grief.

Seven years had passed when someone had asked her about all of that. One bright yellow morning, during those sessions. _Those_ sessions, _that_ summer ... asked how she'd dealt with it all - losing Joe, then her mom's stroke - how she'd managed.

All she could think about was food. (_Pasta alla puttanesca_, to be precise.)

She thought about her body regenerating itself from the food she had eaten.

_You are what you eat_.

She thought about Bobby.

Which was accompanied by the buzz of fear as she wondered if Olivet could hear the noise inside her head.

So she pretended to think about it. Eventually said,

"Work, I guess. Keeping busy helps."

She was only thirty-three then and didn't have crow's feet or laugh lines or frown lines, and lipstick didn't feather, and eyelids didn't sag.

Her nipples were pink, round and soft.

Her belly was smooth and flat.

When she was a thirty-three year old widow and a good cop, there were no precious, crooked, silvery trails on her abdomen, tracing the shape her body had taken over those months ... no faded marks along the swell of her breasts.

No grey hair, for that matter.

Yes, a lot of time to spend together, and of course she had modified a few of her habits.

Doesn't everyone do that? Avoid certain foods? Store breath mints and antacids in discreet pockets, exercise fantastic control over certain body parts, certain aspects of 'being human'?

But when you spend as much time together as they do - sometimes twelve or even fifteen hours at a stretch ... that much time.

Well, intimacy comes in many forms.

She has 'that kind' of metabolism, so she gets hungry. She is irascible (_adorably so_) when hungry. He has been known to joke, "When Eames is fed, she a very effective police officer. When Eames is hungry, she needs to be fed."

She isn't picky. Gas station nachos, candy bars. Skittles.

A danish and a coffee. Whatever. She has that kind of metabolism.

When she has the time, she favours large, exotic leafy salads laced with weird sprouts, toasted seeds and dried berries, or chunks of lean meat, or good cheese. She takes time to appreciate the medley of contradictions, of crisp and soft, bitter and tang. Crunchy raw veggies drizzled with sesame oil. Apple chunks and ricotta and toasted almonds and honey.

She enjoys food.

But truthfully, breakfast is her favourite meal. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, half a grapefruit, coffee ... she'd eat a 'full Monty' any time, day or night, which is a fact that has saved them from many tense drives back to the city.

Because while _she_ can eat pretty-much anything in a pinch, he is a food snob.

"Breakfast is hard to get wrong," he'll say outside the door of yet another 'all day breakfast' joint.

Otherwise, he turns up his nose at cheap street food - hot dogs, falafel, pizza. Unless absolutely forced by sheer absence of choice, he won't eat 'a burger' and in ten years, he's never even helped himself to a fry off her plate.

During the long days on the road, she discovered that he has some Gorenesque innate wisdom, some apparent extrasensory awareness that leads him to _good_ food.

Maybe it's his nose?

They'll be investigating, chasing some lead and be driving around some neighbourhood like Brighton Beach and she will be fractionally short of 'snark' becoming 'surly quip', when he'll suddenly point and say something like,

"They have the best cabbage rolls in town."

And it'll look like the sort of place that Russian Mafiosos might hang out during the day, and in fact be littered with compact, shifty men wearing too much cologne and smoking unfiltered cigarettes, who straighten up and sidle away and watch them from the corners. But he'll pay them no mind, smile with genuine good humour, and place an order 'to go.'

_And_ be absolutely right. They'll invariably be only just shy of manna, and definitely the very best cabbage rolls she has ever eaten.

Or_ verenyki_, _pirohi_, or _borsht_. The best _chili con elote_ and _enchiladas_, and the best _guksu_ and _kimchi_. _inarizushi_ and _edamame_, or tiger prawns and fragrant coconut curry. Potato knishes and kosher dills.

Restaurants, dives, roadside stands - once, a twelve foot travel trailer set up in an abandoned lot - he finds them. He finds them, and chats up the proprietors brokenly, in English mixed with snatches of their native tongue, drawing delight and chortles from scores of mom-and-pop culinary wizards, sharing observations about weather and politics, asking information about ingredients and techniques while he watches gastronomic masterpieces take shape.

Irresistible, scrumptious gastronomic masterpieces, and so, _pepto! beano! alka kazam! _And a variety of over-the-counter products found their way into side pockets and consoles and glove compartments ...

Fairly early on, she learned that he is also a marvel of gourmet improvisation. And, she learned something else about him, too.

One mid-afternoon in a crummy little town hours from anywhere interesting, when he had openly scowled at the grubby paper menu taped to the grubbier diner window, the words "breakfast to eleven o'clock" in bold across the bottom.

Then had headed off across the road, traveling in the direction of an ugly building dubiously titled 'Village Market,' and she had chosen not to accompany him, returning instead to the vehicle to search her secret stores for a power bar or a cookie or something. She'd slipped into cop mode while she waited for him, going over details, counting the women,

(_Angie, then Marie, and Deborah Carnahan … and now Irina, and ..._ )

and organizing thoughts for her report and wondering about ...

So she wasn't paying attention to him when he came back, two rustling white plastic bags in hand. He opened the side slider door, then dug around under the passenger seat, extracted his 'emergency away bag', and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. As she looked on, astonished and salivating, he organized what could only be described as 'antipasto platters' on a pair of red plastic disposable plates.

There was a pile of coarsely hacked-up iceberg lettuce and halved mushrooms and grape tomatoes that he comically washed under a stream of bottled water, holding everything out and away from himself in a vain attempt to keep water off his shoes. He topped these vegetables with marinated artichoke hearts out of a little glass bottle, generously drizzling the remaining vinaigrette over heap. Then Genoa salami, some crumbled Gorgonzola, and fat, green pimento-stuffed olives, all of which was to be eaten with chunks of flaky French bread acting as scoops.

And as he handed her a can of light citrus seltzer and a paper napkin, he even started to explain apologetically that he'd been unable to acquire eating utensils.

Her stomach made a demanding and undignified sound. He looked up quickly in surprise, and saw the expression on her face, and started laughing.

They ate in silence until most of the food was gone. Actually, she wolfed. She pulled crusty chunks of bread off the loaf and used her fingers to hold piles of vegetables and cheese in place as she shoved them into her mouth. She closed her eyes and sighed audibly as she chewed. She took large gulps of the soda, then dug into the bread again.

When she noticed that he was observing her with a goofy half-smile, she sat up straighter and assessed him in return.

"Do this often?"

"Do ... ?"

"I'm guessing that impromptu tailgate picnics are your specialty?"

"Uh ... no! This is my first one."

She gave him a quick look, mostly smirk.

Then she belched.

This is not the sort of thing that women of her generation are raised to do in front of men who are not either members of their immediate families, or with whom they are not otherwise intimate. Alex Eames was raised this way:

"Horses sweat, men perspire. ladies _'glow_'."

Now, she did not 'glow' during ground fighting training, no. Taking down a combatant twice her size required effort, and what the effort resulted in was sweat, all right. It was sweat, pure and simple, when she ran to chase down a perp or ran to keep distance between her and that stuff _over there_. When she pushed weights. And when she stared down the length of her gun at Bobby, it was _sweat_ staining her clothes.

But the values of our mother's generations are our baggage. Eames isn't exempt from that.

She is not a pretentious person. She enjoys being alive. She likes her body. She isn't afraid of it.

Growing up with lots of siblings, and even still while in college, she'd enjoyed her share of crude irreverence. (Surely, every set of sisters and brothers has a champion armpit farter? A champion spitter?) And there'd certainly been drunken beer belching contests at Student Union events and at a few house parties. She had, with practice, been able to burp the first seven letters of the alphabet in succession.

(woo, hoo!)

Potty humour _is_ pretty boring.

The point is, she's no shrinking violet. She's worked Vice, done her share of "_winter nights patrolling The Point in a fur coat and a halter top, looking for johns_ ..." and then some.

But it's also true that she was not terribly thrilled at that moment, to have her normally well-behaved body deciding to be so painfully _human_.

Bobby is nothing if not a gentleman. He smiled. All he said was,

"Your uh ... appreciation is _very_ rewarding."

And she could see that he really meant it, so she decided to drop the 'awkward social blunder' thing, and burped again, though more discreetly this time.

She got a little drip of the oily dressing on the lapel of her best jacket and it left a permanent stain and she doesn't care. She kept that jacket anyway, and she smiles every time she wears it. And when he sees her in it, he smiles, too.

Yes, a lot time. Time enough for discretion to give way before familiarity.

_"If you're going to do that, could you please open your window?"_

_"Yeah, like your ass is made of roses today."  
_

Police detectives are like all other people.

They have to take a little time off to see the dentist twice a year. They schedule an appointment to see the doctor for an annual general physical well in advance.

Time passes and they get older and start to have aches and pains. Back aches and butt aches and head aches and hemorrhoids.

But like all other hard-working, conscientious people, police detectives only take time off when they really have to. Even though they sometimes get sick - get viruses like colds with coughs and runny noses and fevers, or viruses like the flu - even when they get one of those "I need to find a gas station, right now" flus every couple of years, they still make it in to work, a packet of Imodium tucked into their pocket.

It was the third day in a row during the second week in a row, and she'd puked into the fourth gas station sink that morning. He'd given her his finest 'sizing her up' look when she told him she needed to pull over, again.

And she really didn't need to feel comforted by his hulking mass when he followed her into the restroom, or feel so breathlessly grateful when he managed to hold her hair away from her face and still not make any skin-to-skin contact. When her stomach had finally stopped trying to eject itself from her body via her mouth and she'd turned around and sat her shaky self down on the toilet seat, and after he had handed her some moistened rough brown paper towel, and after she had finished sopping up some of the cooling sweat trickling down her face, he stopped hovering and leaned back against the wall, and waited.

She sighed and pushed down hard on anything that felt like 'female weakness.' The requirement to be brave foremost in her mind, she turned her face up to him and just said,

"Three guesses."

* * *

**A/N: **yes, i do know that brains DO regenerate, but in around 2002, the general public did not know that. the study from Princeton was still in progress, and Harvard and Cornell hadn't contributed their findings to the field, yet.


	42. Chapter 42

**A/N:** if somebody knows how to properly use the format options at this site, please send me a pm. my inability to keep things the way i want has brought me to the 'rage blackout' zone. this looks nicer on my computer. maybe i'll figure out how to put it on my page at lj. i can make it beautiful there.

since i started posting this, i've received numerous pm's from folks with stories of their own to share. and i'm stunned, humbled, honoured. (we are legion! maybe some day we will find safety in our numbers.) i'm more than ever convinced that the stories are the most important things because they're the only things that last.

as always, this all belongs to Dick Wolf. i own nothing. please don't sue me.

* * *

"_There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen_

/

A lot of things have changed since then.

But in the early 1970's, it was a different story.

At an hour at which children really ought to be tucked in and sleeping.

A sober adult would have seen that she was lying, and likely would have been unnerved by her dead calm.

But _her_ face was mottled, dark red and twisted up and scary and crazy, her hair flying around her head weirdly, looking like copper snakes. Her mouth open wide, garish and toothy, spittle flying around in a cloud of boozy breath. A noise coming out of the center of her like angry birds.

With her skinny arm burning-sore from being grabbed and gripped, from being dragged down two flights of stairs to the washing machine, it took every burning ounce of effort she could summon, and she did it.

Even with the sting of a hard slap still on her cheek.

Even with the strong fingers pinching into her narrow little girl shoulders, shaking her. Eyes wild with drunken rage, yes, and also _naked terror_, the yellow daisy panties with the poppy-bright stain she'd tried to keep hidden in her shorts pocket, right there in the open.

Shrieking and screeching into her small, pale and perfectly-blank face,

"_Don't you dare! Don't you dare be a dirty little liar!"_

Every bit of strength she knew she had. And some other kind of power like a dormant instinct or an ancient wisdom, a _genetic memory_, that she _didn't _know before. That she knew forevermore.

She kept her secret.

/

While in Brooklyn, having managed to get her cleaned up, sedated and packed into bed, twelve-going-on-thirteen year old Bobby Goren was sitting on the bathroom floor, quietly observing the fading of the last of the summer twilight.

Not finished yet, but the wet, red rag hanging in his hand was now only capable of _smearing,_ anyway. And while he intended to sit as quietly as possible for a few more minutes, he was also planning.

Planning to move his legs and stand up.

Planning to get a clean rag, finish wiping it out of the tub, and off the floor. Then turn on the light.

Planning repairs to the shattered panel in the door.

(Sort-of planning what he was going to say to Frank when he came home. _If _he ever came home.)

Planning his next lie. The next thing he was going to have to make up, to say to his boss in order to be able to be late for or even possibly miss his shift altogether, _again_ …

Planning new approaches, new tricks and new clever strategies. New ways to leave her unsupervised. _Safely_ leave her.

Not thinking too much about it. Not thinking about it or remembering it, because then there'd be the technicolour instant replay and his teeth would start chattering again, and there'd be the tightening and tensing in his core that felt like he'd fold right in half and snap his own spine.

He'd start to think about it and he'd realize again that, as bad as this was, it was going to get worse. And he could phone his father, or his aunt in Minnesota, or Father Vittorio, and tell them … tell them _what_?

Thinking would lead to realizing that there wasn't going to be any help.

That he'd have to keep this secret.

/

That's sort-of the problem with 'dams bursting' or 'floodgates opening' or any of those metaphorical descriptions of what happened to Eames that day.

There's no gradual getting used to being submerged. No time to prepare, brace for it.

Just, _whammo._

Of course, he'd seen this thing many times as a cop.

And before that. Had definitely been witness to this, seen a person just … _dissolve_.

Since he knows his partner and knows she does not do well with being out of control, he knew she was going to be in trouble.

He didn't know that he'd be in trouble, too.

It happened just after the vegetable-washing splash fight that had turned into a rather vicious round of wet tea-towel war - both of which she started.

He'd been taken completely by surprise.

For one thing, having had the kind of family he'd had, he was mostly unfamiliar with silly horseplay in the kitchen. Frances could be fun when she wasn't unwell. She appreciated a good laugh. But she favoured word games - punning and double entendres and witticisms. Physicality indoors was not something she approved of ...

"_Bobby! And you too, Frank! Get your rough-housing out of my kitchen before you break something, or something is going to be breaking over both your backsides!" _

… and so the first time she shot water at him from the tap nozzle, he thought it had been an accident.

For another thing, he was painfully aware of the fact that she had no reason whatsoever to want to smile.

But in spite every shitty thing that had happened that day (_case, week, year_…), she was _playing _with him and he felt a sweet rush of joy. Enthusiastically joined the playfight. Was fighting fair, shaking the wet lettuce at her and prism-lit water droplets were flying everywhere, but quick little Eames - smiling wickedly - ducked under his arms to get behind him, pulled his waistband away from his back, shoved a wet dishcloth down his pants and nimbly stepped out of his reach in a single, elegant motion.

"I'm only going to get a shot at that once," she was laughing, "so I thought, you know, since you're here …"

And he'd barely finished his incredibly comical gasping, wriggling reaction, was just done extracting the rag and rearranging his expression from absurdly surprised to _in the game _when he got hit with the first snap of the towel.

"Oh, it's like that, is it?"

"Damn right," she said, twirling her towel in the air.

He pulled the damp towel he'd been using to pat dry the greens from the countertop, pointed his finger at her and said sternly,

"Don't start something you can't finish."

"Bring it," she answered, and she grinned again.

Goren learns quickly.

So he played his size advantage, too, which was ridiculously unfair, considering the size of the kitchen space. Soon had her trapped against the sink, and was unfairly taking advantage of that, too, nuzzling her ears and neck, showering her with warm kisses while she laughed and laughed and tried in vain to distract him.

"The chicken, it's! _Oven_! The … ! The …_tickles_! _Bobby_!" Laughing breathless laughter.

So he backed off and let her know with his eyes that she'd definitely got his attention, and he'd be happy to continue this _later_.

And she was still breathless when it rang - the cordless-but-still-plugged-into-the-house land line.

Then anything like mirth or happiness, maybe even a little bit of the air in the room _evaporated, _and he stopped tearing romaine lettuce into the wooden salad bowl, directed his entire focus _at _her.

The change seemed to have even affected the atomic structure of the kitchen when the person on the other end started talking.

It didn't take very long for him to get _who_ and _what_ from listening to her side.

She heard the news and told the other end 'thanks for calling', then calmly hung up, stood with her hand on the device, seemed to be contemplating it - the phone. She picked it up again and gave it a funny once over, a close inspection of the keypad. As he watched, she traced the cord toward where it was plugged into the wall and yanked the entire connective piece out of the wall with a swift, clean movement. And apparently not satisfied with just that much damage, she began smashing the handset down on the edge of the counter.

_Smash smash smash. _

She was a study in contradictions - outwardly calm, impassive, serene (except for the clearly _not_ calm smashing), and then a quiet sound, a low grief, building with each smash.

But then the phone exploded into plastic and wire shrapnel and Eames … .

She howled. Like a wolf, head back and eyes tight shut and mouth open, she howled.

He felt his gonads pull up into his body cavity.

He thought, _'Uh-oh'_

The _so familiar right now _hit him like a blow to his middle and he almost vomited.

An old, unclean pocket of grief and rage split open - a sickening flood of memories - his mother shrieking and shrieking andpulling her own hair and his helpless, inadequate father with his balled fists and his callous derision all spinning and swirling into Eames after she'd escaped and _he wanted me to scream _and Alex, here now,

howling.

So he just stood there stupefied.

And he just watched her while she trashed the kitchen.

The telephone. The portable stereo. The dish rack.

'_Please don't,' _he thought, and his fists clenched_. _

A study in contradictions, heart a heavy, pounding hammer and mind spinning in fear and body frozen, face frozen, aghast, watching her jerk the stemware and plates and cups and bowls off the shelf, then the cutting board, and the salad bowl.

Then she was sliding in the broken glass and crockery on the floor and shoving the cookbooks off the surface of the counter, reaching for the next thing to grab and throw and break and destroy and ruin and wreck.

The espresso maker. The china teapot. The coffee mug.

(_laugh and the world laughs with you … _)

Bobby had run out of ideas.

He had run out of shocking things to offer, had no more tricks up his sleeve, no colourful distractions.

No Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory score, no childhood scars.

No more parents, or brothers, or any other secrets to reveal.

No power left to stop the torrent.

_(As if he ever could.)_

His gut tensed even tighter. His fists clenched even tighter.

Yup, he'd been here before, all right. Many times. And he _knew what was coming_, could see what was next. _Knew. _Was coiled, getting ready, _readying_. His hands balled fists. His heart a heavy hammer. Blood, blood, blood, pounding in his ears.

He watched her being washed away (_helpless, inadequate_) and knew something he really didn't want to know, something he'd tried so hard his whole adult life _not _to know.

Then he knew a distilled desire to beat something to death with his fists. Pound the life out of another creature. Find the person, people, things that made her feel like this, find them.

Just hit and hit and hit.

Just make it stop.

While she slipped in the glass and howled and reached for the next thing to grab and throw and destroy.

But all that was left was the plant.

The plant, which hadn't bloomed in years, but had recently been cut back and repotted into fresh, fertile soil in the Phoenix dish. A few treasures arranged around its base - the snow globe, the chess queen. Faded florist pick _("It's a Boy!")_ still poking out of the greenery.

She saw the plant and stopped. Panting, she stopped. She stopped for a too-long moment and panic rose up and filled him until his lungs were collapsing and he could only blow air out through his nose. Panic and readying for what he knew was coming next.

Then she turned and lurched and tipped toward him, and he caught her sweat-soaked, shaking, body.

She reached for him.

After all the years of holding himself against this thing, it's very likely that it felt as if his heavy heart was breaking open, coming apart into chunks and then coming apart into fragments and then coming apart. Like it was his heavy heart that had been hurled into the floor, like it was his heart that had been irreparably broken into shards and jagged pieces.

It's likely that there was an actual sensation, an exaggeration of gravity, a dizzying freefall all the way from the stratosphere to the ground.

And while he'd been expecting to be consumed by rage when it happened, or worse, (he was _definitely _expecting worse), instead he got something entirely new.

It was like a wisdom of colours, sounds, scents. A metamorphosis at a cellular level.

Something quite a lot like _peace._

_She reached for him._

And it turned out that Frances had been right. After all that practice, he _did_ know.

So he guided her away from the kitchen carnage, moved her to safety and brought them both down to the floor, and then held her.

He held her hard enough for it to hurt a little. Just to keep her from shattering, to keep her from cracking open, and her substance pouring out, pouring into the cosmos, leaving only a shell of Eames.

Using his quietest voice, over and over until he knew for sure that she'd heard him,

_It's not your fault._

He held on and did not let go.

/

_It doesn't matter._

Not how long it's been since you saw her last, not how long you knew it was coming, and not even if it's a relief, that she won't be in pain anymore.

It doesn't matter if she wasn't what she should be. If she let you down, if she failed you. Betrayed you. If she was drunk or uncaring, or cruel.

It doesn't even matter if you truly hated her, as Mike Logan did.

And maybe when you've devoted most of your own life to it. To holding it all in, holding your breath, and waiting. When you have devoted your life to the lie, to guarding her from the naked, ugly truth.

Maybe even especially then.

When you've been waiting for a lifetime for her to be the person you need her to be, and who she cannot be.

_The exhale can feel like that._


	43. Chapter 43

A/N: this chapter has been really difficult to finish. in fact, this is not finished. there is a part two. in the computer, it's working title has been, "That Christmas Chapter".

everything is still Dick's. not mine. i heart Goren and Eames.

* * *

Part One.

Perched on a stool near the bar, sucking a swizzle stick. Wiggling her toe. One eye on the screen above the bartender's head, one eye on the only other occupants of the fine drinking establishment, she was alone.

She looked fantastic, she knew, because she'd met with friends from her Vice days, and they'd had a festive, celebratory late lunch. A few drinks. Some laughs.

And then_ they'd_ all gone home to their lives.

And now the sun had set, and here she sat, a little too dressy in her holiday getup - the tall, butter-soft, dark brown leather boots and the gorgeous jewel-red cashmere dress, the embroidered silk wrap from the gift shop at _The Met_ - she was a little too conspicuous in this crummy bar, and feeling a little like an idiot.

Still not wanting to go yet. Not wanting to go to _her house_. The place she lived.

There.

_Boo, hoo, hoo._

She tossed her bangs off her forehead with a quick motion_._

_It could be worse._

Her partner had gone to spend four days in a mental hospital and a motel unit.

And when did this happen? When did she start to feel _like this _before a short break from 'work'?

_Like what?_

At odds? A little lost?

_Lonely?_

No, just alone. Because she was alone.

_Boo_

_hoo_

_hoo._

So what if she was in a cop bar by herself on Christmas Eve? So what?

This was just one of those things that you get to do when you're a thirty-something widowed and childless cop.

Something like the meal she'd share with the family tomorrow night.

Some pound of flesh.

A payment.

On what, she didn't know.

They'd held boisterous family affairs at her parents' house. A tree hung with old glass bobbles and icicles and aging glitter-and-glue ornaments, and faded paper chains, and scores of tiny photos in hanging frames, of grinning, freckled kids with Santa and on sleds and in front of other decorated trees from long ago.

A crackling fire and twinkle lights. Everyone together.

She'd always done a formal table - a resplendent homage to Yuletide celebrations of yore. The good china, the silver just polished, and the crystal, the old damask table linens freshly bleached and starched, the napkins rolled up and tucked inside their silver rings.

A cracker on every plate.

And had always made the turkey dressing from scratch, with sage and onions she grew in her garden and harvested herself.

And the pumpkin pie, the raisin pie, the spicy apple pie. The mincemeat tarts.

She'd mulled the wine.

And played Perry Como and Andy Williams and Bing Crosby.

And had always, always tied fresh mistletoe over the entranceway, and holly and ivy on the mantle, fir boughs on the banister.

_Norman Friggin' Rockwell._

Eames licked dry lips and swallowed hard against the dusty feeling in her mouth, kept one eye on the cops in the middle of the bar.

Thought about all the happy, happy years, the recipe cards and bowls and utensils and cooking things spread over every surface. Waxed-paper lined tins filled with ginger-spicy tarts and buttery shortbread cookies. The fridge spilling over with eggnog and cranberries. The kitchen filled with steam and laughter, all of them helping her get it all together, get it on the table.

Her prolonged stay in the hospital had wiped out their life savings.

The weeks on the respirator.

The touch-and-go days.

All that, long before her homebound convalescence, or her physio. Or drug costs, or specialists, or therapists.

There had been a third mortgage. Then, they'd had to sell the house.

The new place was a lot smaller.

Now, Dad brought Mom out to wherever they were gathering for the feasts each year.

Here, for Easter. And there for Thanksgiving. Somewhere else for Christmas.

And, to all outward appearances, they carried on with things more-or-less as they had before the stroke.

They visited, exchanged smiles, embraces, and seasonally-appropriate gifts.

They cooked a huge butter-basted turkey in an aluminum foil roasting pan, and ate it accompanied with the usual things - mashed potatoes and gravy and green peas, or brussels sprouts.

Her brother's wife might bring home preserves to share - dill pickles, beets, string beans. Her kid brother would get the pies from a good bakery in his neighbourhood. They'd serve everything on disposable plates to cut down on the clean-up.

Maybe watch something together on the tv.

_(You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch ... )_

And sit Mom in the middle of everything, and try to keep the little ones from wearing her out.

They took lots of pictures.

They laughed and joked.

Somehow, someone always drank a little too much, and there was often a heated discussion about something that was clearly much more important than that mountain of unaddressed baggage lying just behind everything else.

All seasons or winter tires? The Yankees starting lineup. The price of tea in China.

She'd look for her chance to pull Dad aside and get some numbers from him, and leave him a few cheques.

Then they'd all go home again.

She got to go to the latest apartment that wasn't a home. To her bird.

To all that.

And because _all that _was just about too bitter even for her, she shifted her well-dressed ass on her stool and ordered another vodka martini.

Overhead at Mr. Martini's bar, Mr. Welsh had just punched George Bailey in the jaw - (an answer to his prayers, he supposed) - and Nick-the-Bartender and Mr. Martini were trying to get him to sit down and rest. But George lurched out into the storm, determined to be miserable.

"Go home, George," she advised the tiny grey character. "Bars and storms are no place to be on Christmas Eve."

"Do as I say, not as I do?"

His stealth-mode thing caught her off-guard and she jumped a little bit. Took a round-eyed, point-three second glance around the bar.

"Jesus, Bobby," she put her hand over her knocking heart.

"Oh, sorry Eames," he filled in the barstool next to hers. "I didn't mean to … . May I … ?"

"By all means."

She craned her neck, looking all around the dim, dirty interior of the place, scanning, then flicked back to him.

"Didn't let any other vapourous apparitions sneak in with you?"

" '_Vapourous_'? Who are you expecting - the Spirit of Christmas Past?"

She laughed.

"Anyway, I think I'm kinda big to be _vaporous_."

It was pointless, dumb, but she asked him anyway.

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh … I'm looking for you? You left early and … . I found the ... I think you meant for me to find it later, but … Eames, thank you."

"Well, 'tis the season and all the rest of it. So, you're welcome. I saw it while I was shopping for Harry Potter stuff for my nieces. I was thinking about what you said, about the source of his sense of humour, and I guess it spoke to me of you."

"Well, it's a beautiful volume. And you're uh, very astute." He observed the cluster of surly drunks for a long moment. Then said to her, "Uh, so, if this is the 'tradition,' if you don't mind, I'd like to, uh, buy you a, a traditional holiday drink?"

"Ahhh … the sympathy drink. How thoughtful."

"No, um … no. Not sympathy. _Empathy_."

And she could see that he meant it. So she decided to drop the defensiveness and all of the rest of it. Decided that, since it truly could be worse, that feeling suddenly _festive _was something she could just enjoy without a lot of examination or introspection or fuss.

She gave him a brilliant smile instead.

Waved to the woman rubbing glasses with a white towel, exchanged meaningful glances, was rewarded with another vodka martini, and a '_You, sir?' _got him a good scotch, neat.

He turned his full attention to Eames, who was treating him to a quizzical stare

"How did you know where to find me?"

"Well, I _am_ a detective." He wore a small, boyish smile. "What are your plans?"

"Oh, the usual funtastic family meal."

"Staten Island?"

"Yup." She knew it was becoming a nervous gesture, but she brushed her hair away from her eyes, anyway. Lied to his face. Said, "It's nice to catch up with everyone's news. Anyway, how about you? What gives? I thought you'd have gone up already?"

His smile shifted from warm to careful, and he got that _pall_. He said,

"Uh, no. N-not until the ... 'til later. The weather, freezing rain. You know."

He tilted his glass slightly, turned the dark golden liquor in his tumbler in slow, gentle circles. His face was very still, and Eames felt her heart pinch in her chest.

From the air between them, she picked up the tempo, the now-familiar thrum of panic that was - just like that - coming off him like percussion shock waves, had been rolling off him in varying degrees of intensity at regular intervals since just before Thanksgiving.

She thought about him, shaken right down to his core by that old woman lying there, just below the surface. Bobby with his nostrils flared and his gaze unfocused, sitting on the lid of the toilet with his back to the dead woman in the tub, quietly gasping. Sitting there, taut. Trying _so hard _to talk, to form a question or connect a thought, like everything was normal.

Like he was okay.

Now, it was Christmas Eve and they were on their own time and she didn't need to make a joke now. She didn't need to run interference or do anything at all but sit here and wait. There were no prying eyes, no _not understanding_ cops or CSU teams milling around and filing past. No people to smell his fear.

So she drank her dry vodka martini and waited.

And eventually he spoke.

"She isn't … uh, responding. To usual treatments. For _disruptive deficit_ symptoms." He studied his hands on his glass while he shared this morsel. Cleared his throat lightly, and explained,

"Those are the, uh … non-schizophrenia-specific symptoms. Like … uh, d-dysphoria. And depression."

"She okay?"

"She … . Uh … no." His voice sounded stretched, tinny. He cleared his throat, shrugged slightly. Then sipped up his whiskey, flicked his fingers for a refill.

And then they both looked up at the screen.

She watched the darkest hour of George Bailey's life and thought about the first time they been bellied up to a bar together. She remembered with crystal clarity every single word of the story of Frances.

"_I was bigger than her by the time I was ten and … no, I was never really afraid __of__ her - it's more like, being afraid __for__ her."_

And Alex knew what he meant by that. She said,

"Well, I see it's time for things to get interesting for old George," gesturing to the scene unfolding in Bedford Falls. "Another tradition."

He was checking the time. Looked at Eames, hesitating.

She organized herself on her stool, feeling a contradictory flood of relief and disappointment, gave him her best 'I'm fine here by myself' smile. Said,

"I can't be the only stop on your rounds tonight, Bobby," she nodded at the clock. "Don't let me keep you from more interesting pursuits."

He looked down at his hands on the bar and frowned, considering something. Then he said,

"She's from Switzerland."

"She went home for the holidays?"

"No, uh. I mean, I have no idea. Her parents live here, they're uh, diplomats. Work at the U.N."

"That sounds serious. You've met her parents?"

"Well, yes, but … uh," his frown deepened. He said again, "She's from Switzerland. They, they speak several different dialects of German in Switzerland, and they also speak Romansch, which is a unique form of - well, it's _not_ German at all, but it's a fascinating variant of, of … . They have this monthly ex-pat thing. At, at a restaurant, at East Eighty-Eighth and Second Avenue."

"So, what … ? Just you and Denise and the Swiss Diplomatic Corps and a little 'spreken zie deutsch' over schnitzel and spaetzle?"

"Well, yes."

"My impression of you as 'Don Juan DeGoren' just went down in flames."

He didn't smile. He said,

"Well, that's probably a good thing, right? Because it's not true, right?"

"What, don't tell me your department wide rep as a primo stud is based on exaggeration, myth and invention?"

"Well, what about yours?" He asked abruptly, straightening his back, now irritated and prickly, and she felt a pang. Felt sorry for teasing him, sorry for the sudden discomfort, and distance.

"Mine?" She asked. "Do tell."

"'_Snow Queen of Queens'_?"

"Really?"

He looked up from his study of his hands and his glass, met her gaze. Nodded once.

"That isn't very clever," she said, her smile a little bit _wistful_. She sighed. "I've never lived in Queens. Well, if that's all the eleventh floor's come up with for 'locker room talk', I'll claim it." She raised her hand, gave her fingers a little wave. "Mine, fair and square."

Their eyes met, held for a long moment, and then they both grinned.

"Happens a lot?"

"No, not anymore. Just when I was newly the 'lonely widow'."

He made his stool swivel around and turned to face her more fully, leaning on his right arm on the bar, and he looked curiously into her face. Arched an eyebrow. Waited for more. So she laughed a little, said,

"oh, you'd be surprised how many of our _esteemed colleagues _dropped by late nights to check up on me, offer me a sympathetic shoulder to cry on."

He nodded. Said,

"That was, um, '_supportive_' of them."

"Yes, _very_ helpful. I felt so cared for." She lifted her martini glass, a mock salute. "Cheers. " And downed the vodka.

"I'm sorry, Eames," he said.

"Why are you sorry?"

"I wish we could behave better than that. That's all."

"'_We'_?"

He kept her gaze. And after a lengthening moment, she snorted. Shook her head.

"You aren't a '_we_', Bobby."

The door banged open again and she flicked a glance at the men filing in, being cool, she thought.

But when she looked back, he was wearing his penetrating stare.

So she knew that he'd seen it. The rush to her chest felt like a pillow-fight blow, prickly heat flowing up, up. _Up_. Almost staining her cheeks, but not quite. She sat a little straighter and tossed her hair away from her face.

"Knock it off, Goren," she said.

He held up his hands in mock surrender.

Then the bartender dropped a tray of deli meats and sliced cheese and olives and cheap snack crackers on their end of the bar, telling them to enjoy some 'complimentary holiday hors d'oeuvres'.

His nose wrinkled, then her stomach audibly growled.

They both laughed.

"You're right, though, I do have somewhere else to be tonight. I have an appointment with some of the best 'all day breakfast' in town, and I was hopin' I could tempt you ... ?"

"_Oooh _… is that an invitation?"

"Well, only if you want …"

"As if I could even pretend … 'Hungry McStomach' has spoken."

They both slipped on thickly-lined leather gloves. She wound the paisley pashmina around her neck and ears, pulled the heavy hood of her coat up to cover. He withdrew a dark blue watch cap from his pocket and tugged it down over his ears.

Then they stepped outside into a bitter, cruel cold.

* * *

A/N: this is set in season two. the dead woman in the tub was Nan Turner, from 'Suite Sorrow'.


End file.
